Pull Up Assist Bands

These are great for home workouts or training with minimal equipment, though you can also combine them with weights. I use them to do add resistance to body weight exercises (dips, push-ups) and to replace free weights and cable machines in traditional exercises (bicep curls, rows, lat pull-downs, side raises, squats, dead-lifts, etc). I love the portability and flexibility they offer and the multiple resistance levels. They seem durable and don’t feel cheap. Bonus things I like about using bands instead of weights include constant tension and less joint discomfort after workouts.

This may not be for the Uber Traditionalist Weight Lifter that wants to see heavy plates all over his garage or basement; or the Gym Rat that feels more important when they do their rep's on a giant machine. But for those like me, that just want to maintain strength and fitness these bands are Superb. Price is nothing compared to the traditional equipment. Storage is a little bag in a closet. Only limited by your imagination. A solid pair of gloves (full finger or half) and a door stop are all that is needed to do a host of exercises. The favorite for me is assisted pull ups! I drape a thick band over the pull up bar and stretch it until it sits under my bent knee. Like magic I am doing pull ups and already see the gain when I try without the bands. These are color coded to easily go through your routine.

I'm in my late 40's and have been a frequent presence at the gym, lifting free weights for about the last three decades. I'm no Schwarzenegger, but, along with some cardio, it's kept me in shape. When the pandemic hit and my gym in NYC was shuttered I put together a make-shift gym in my place upstate, but getting the right equipment was a slow (and yet incomplete) process. So I thought I would supplement with these bands and now I'd find it hard to live without them. I use them both to complement free weights (eg, stretched behind my back turns 35 lb dumbbells into 60 lbs when doing incline dumbbell press) and stand-alone, replicating a lot of the movements for ancillary exercises that in a gym would require varied and expensive equipment (eg, reverse cable flyes). My significant other uses them to do assisted pullups. I bought another set for my NYC apartment given that I now spend part of the week there and am not ready to venture back into Equinox just yet. On customer service: when my (slender female) significant other was doing assisted pullups with the purple band, it broke. It can happen (now she uses two red bands). I contacted the seller via the Amazon seller messaging link and the seller responded quickly and helped resolve the issue.

These bands work great. I have used other bands in the past, and they are great as well, but no matter what bands you get, eventually they will wear over time. The smaller bands tend to experience more use. If you receive bands with defects, returning them is always a good option. Also, avoid anchoring bands to objects with sharp corners.