It’s easy to get into the habit of thinking about workouts in a fairly simple, black-and-white way: Increase the amount of reps performed, or increase the weight lifted, and you’ll make gains. This may be true, but there are plenty of factors that go into making progress, even when you’re following tried-and-true methods.
Things like body type and training history can play heavily into whether any given exercise is effective for a particular lifter. Depending on a person’s build — limb length, mass, and so on — it may not be the simplest task to even get into position for a given exercise. Trying to add reps or weight to the picture can make this bad situation worse and put you in potential injury territory. Even with bodyweight exercises, it’s a bigger task for a powerlifter to throw their own weight around versus, say, a gymnast.
When it comes to bodyweight workouts, it’s not always easy to just knock out more reps. But practice makes perfect, and it can be daunting to think of adding more push-ups to your workouts when doing five is a challenge.
Enter resistance bands.