Resistance Bands vs Weights
Good news for people who can’t get to the gym - Low Cost Elastic Tubing May Be Equally Effective to Conventional Weight Machines.
A new study published in the American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine has assessed the muscle force and functional capacity (workload) in middle-aged to older healthy adults without any underlying disease following a 12 week resistance training program. The Study by Lima et al., 2018 compared these variables against a group that just used elastic tubing, versus those that used more conventional resistance machines.
The results found similar positive effects in peripheral muscle force and functional capacity in both groups, with not one method significantly better than the other. The takeaway finding from this study is that either resistance training method is better than none, and that tubing is a viable alternative to conventional resistance machines.