Mini bands are a simple piece of equipment that will give you an effective workout that takes up minimal space. This means you can use them anywhere.
Now you may only think of these bands in terms of those booty burner workouts you see on the ‘gram, but there’s a lot more you can do for a full-body workout.
You can use these small bands to increase the intensity of an already challenging exercise, add stability work to your training, or do at home exercises when you don’t have much.
Prone Pulldowns
This sorta Pulldown like move has you laying on the floor or on a bench with the band around your wrists.
Mimic a pulldown motion, and as you pull, you’re spreading the forearms away from each other. As you do the pull, the upper back muscles should fire up.
These don’t require a super heavy band to be effective.
Mini Band Pulses
Part shoulder burner, part shoulder prehab/rehab. These pulses have you doing constant movement as you raise the arms overhead.
As the arms go overhead, the pulses get a bit harder but have our shoulder muscles reacting to the bounce back.
Again, these don’t need to be super high resistance to be effective, nor do you need to do a lot of reps.
Bow & Arrow
Mini band bow and arrow rows aka Hawkeye rows or insert your favorite character that uses a bow and arrow. These are a sneaky challenging way to work your upper back and shoulder stability.
At home, it can be hard to find a place to anchor a band for pulling movements. With these, we can use one arm as the anchor while the other rows.
As a bonus, the one arm has to stabilize as you row, essentially getting a two for one exercise.
If all you have is a mini band, these are great for your pulling movements, for back work, and shoulder stability.
”Row”
This row is kind of like the Pulldown we started off with, just in a horizontal position. As we row, we push the arms out to the side, and squeeze the shoulder blades together, much like a regular row.
These also have the feel of band pull apart as you do them. If you happen to have dumbbells, these can add a bit more to them.
Hips Elevated Psoas March
Hip flexors are a tricky thing to work with. For some of us, they are constantly “tight“ and that means we should stretch them.
However, sometimes that tightness or tension we feel is because our hip flexors are weak. So when we stretch, we’re just making them tighter and not seeing the result we want.
Adding in some hip flexor strengthening exercises can help by improving core strength, and pelvic stability. Once these areas are improved, you may not feel the need to stretch all the time.
Lay on your back, elevate your hips and pull your knee towards your chest. The band will provide resistance, strengthening the hip flexors.