If you’ve been reading the Home Workout Ideas site for a while, you will know I am a keen believer in resistance bands and resistance band training in general. I recently wrote a few guides to getting started with this type of home fitness equipment so go check it out if you are not familiar with this type of kit.
Now I know resistance tubes and bands aren’t the best pieces of fitness equipment on the market, but for the price, small amount of space they take up and the portability factor, they should not be overlooked by anyone who wants to get in shape at home or bust out of the skinny fat zone without joining a gym. They don’t really compare with free weights but that is not what they were designed to do.
The Gym isn’t for Everyone
When I realised I was skinny fat I pretty much ran down to my local gym and signed on the dotted line. Prior to that I’d also been a bit of a weed and not the sporty type at all, so it was pretty intimidating joining the gym, even though it was a pretty friendly place. It took me months to pluck up the courage to enter the free weights room and graduate from the running machines and resistance machines.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to claim I’m a brave guy for joining the gym despite the fact I was more than a little nervous about taking those first few steps over the threshold. I can totally empathise with anyone reading this that is out of shape, whether that means they are overweight, underweight or skinny fat, and just can’t find the confidence to join a gym. Gyms can be intimidating places for sure. Even if 99% of the gyms I’ve been to in my time have been friendly places, when you take those first steps into a new gym, you are never quite sure what you are going to find!
Resistance Tubes: An Alternative to the Gym
If you just can’t face the prospect of going to a gym on a regular basis, you can still stop being skinny fat by working out at home with resistance bands. Sure, a set of kettlebells or a multi-gym might help you achieve your goals a bit faster, but for the price, ease of use and portability, you just can’t beat a good set of resistance tubes or bands to get you started.
If you look on amazon.com you can most likely pick up the best-selling set of resistance bands, like the Black Mountain Resistance Band Set, for about $30. This is probably less than a couple of month’s gym membership. Once the bands arrive, you can begin working out at home and get on the way to saying goodbye to skinny fatness forever.
After a few weeks or months working out at home with resistance bands, you might find you are ready to join a gym. A little bit of experience and strength goes a long way and once you’ve built a good foundation with your new bands, you will most likely feel a lot more confident in the gym.
Can Resistance Bands Stop You Being Skinny Fat?
So when it comes to the question of ‘can resistance bands help you stop being skinny fat?’, the short answer from me is an emphatic yes. While the long answer is more along the lines of, they are a great place to start and can really help you get some momentum going, but if you want to get a toned, athletic physique then they probably aren’t enough in the long term. If you want to look good in a pair of Zyzz shorts, then at some point you are going to upgrade your gear to a something more challenging or bite the bullet and join the gym!
The question as to whether or not resistances bands can help you build muscle is a good one. If you take a look at this type of fitness equipment, it is easy to see why someone might wonder if they really are up to the job of building muscle. They don’t look like they could be effective at increasing your strength and helping you put on some muscle, especially when you 
If you’ve got your holidays coming up and are worried about missing vital training sessions while away from home and the gym then don’t worry! There are a number of holiday workout ideas that can help you have a good workout while away from and make sure you stay on track and headed towards reaching your goals.
If you are staying somewhere with a gym then that is all well and good, but for most of us this isn’t always the case. Even if you are staying somewhere that is advertised as having its own gym it might not be quite up to the standards you were envisioning. I can remember turning up somewhere, having gone through the trouble of packing my gym gear with me, only to find the ‘fitness center’ as they called it, was no more than a stuffy room with a home treadmill and a lat pull down machine that had seen better days. I didn’t train at all that holiday despite psyching myself up to do so and coming prepared with my PE kit. What I wish I’d done was invest in a set of 
Resistance bands are basically two handles attached to a strong, but stretchy length of rubber or plastic. By pulling the handles you can give various muscle groups a workout without the need for a gym or even any dumbbells or free weights. Some kits have lots of different bands offering different levels of resistance while others, like the 
If you want to take things one step further then you could opt for the set of suspension straps. These look a bit like the bands but they don’t stretch and are, as the name suggest, suspend over a door or hook, allowing you to do bodyweight exercises that take your training to the next level. Due to the way the handles on these things swing around as you lean on them, it takes all of your might to keep still and avoid the wobble. This makes any workout you perform with these straps even more effective. Suspension trainers are great for those who travel a lot and need to get in a powerful workout while away from home on a regular basis. They also are great for training at home since they can be packed up and put away when you are finished with them as well as being able to be deployed almost anywhere. Deciding which ones to get can be quite tricky as they all have their pros and cons, however this guide looking at 
Most people, it is fair to say, train and go to the gym in order to improve their aesthetic qualities. Sure you might train for strength or to get fit first and foremost but somewhere along the line, getting in better shape is one of the reasons, or at least an added bonus you don’t mind receiving from working out.
