When & When Not to Use a Booty Band
Everyone loves a booty band but are you relying on them too much? Whilst resistance bands have their place when it comes to training your glutes, social media and marketing ploys have led to the importance of these being massively overstated. PSA for our WeGlow community: booty bands will NOT grow your glutes. There’s a reason our guides and workouts are full of the basics like squats, hip thrusts, lunges and deadlifts – because these movements work and if you want to grow your glutes they’re your best friends…(along with progressive overload).
So, when should you use a booty band?
1. As part of a warm up – bands can be a useful tool to include as part of your warm up. Some of our favourite exercises using bands are: banded feet-elevated glute bridges, banded clams and banded squats!
2. To increase mechanical tension at certain parts of an exercise – bands can be a useful way to increase the amount of tension at certain points of an exercise to add additional challenge to the movement. For example, when doing a band-resisted Romanian Deadlift (one of our favourite lower body exercises)!
3. During a finisher – whilst ‘feeling the burn’ doesn’t equate to building muscle, adding a high rep or high intensity finisher to your workout can be a fun way to end your workout on a high! Booty bands are a great way to feel that burn and go for those higher reps without the risk of injury.
4. When you have limited access to equipment – booty bands are great for when you’re travelling as they’re compact and light (unlike weights) so are an easy way to increase tension for exercises beyond just your bodyweight.
Here’s what to avoid when it comes to booty bands:
– Avoid adding a band to every exercise in your leg workout – sometimes this does more harm than good by preventing proper execution of the exercise you’re doing.
– Don’t prioritise booty band exercises over your basic compound lifts like hip thrusts or deadlifts. You’ll be getting far more ‘bang for your buck’ by committing to these exercises and working on lifting heavier over time than doing hundreds of resistance band kickbacks!
– Safety first – please don’t be that person walking on the treadmill or the Stairmaster with a booty band on – not only is this potentially dangerous but it offers no benefit from a muscle gain perspective.
