The Best Resistance Band Exercises for Athletes in Lockdown | How to Build Muscle at Home

Whether your country is issuing another lockdown, or you're not able to go to the gym for whatever reason, it's still important you find ways to stay active and strong while at home.

With the cases of the Coronavirus rising up again in many different areas of the world, some people are choosing to stay away from crowded areas like the gym.

Personally, I've been working out at home for a few months now, simply because I don't want to risk coming into contact with the virus and infecting others around me.

And with that, comes the challenge of having to workout without your usual equipment and weights.

Fortunately, I've been able to find ways around the lack of weight by being able use a set of Resistance bands to mimic the resistance needed to build strength, muscle, and power.

Because of the Resistance Bands, I've been able to maintain my strength, if not get even stronger, while being stuck working out at home.

They've been excellent for helping me apply progressive overload to your typical bodyweight exercises since the bands I use go up in resistance, and they can be stacked as well.

Here are some of the best exercises that I've been implementing to my strength workouts in order to build a stronger, more athletic physique at home:

Upper Body Resistance Band Exercises:

Resistance Band Pushups

Pushups are an excellent compound exercise to develop your chest and shoulder muscles, as well as your core.

Adding resistance to your pushups at home using a resistance band is an excellent way to build strength at home without weights. You can easily progress this exercise by increasing the sets and reps, increasing the resistance by using heavier bands (or even stacking bands), and by playing with the eccentric and isometric phase of the pushup.

Adding a heavy resistance band to your pushups honestly feels like you're bench pressing a heavy weight for reps, so it's the perfect replacement for your typical bench press or dumbbell chest press exercises you'd typically do at the gym.

The added resistance also challenges your core and trunk stability, since you're body is fighting to have to keep it's form while it performs the pushup. Make sure that when you're doing this exercise, you're keeping your core tight, and you're protracting and retracting your scapula's to challenge your push muscles further and get the most benefits from this exercise.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Kneeling Resistance Band Shoulder Press

The shoulder press exercise is an excellent exercise to build deltoid strength and to build strong shoulder muscles.

However, you don't have your typical dumbbells so you aren't able to do the weighted shoulder presses you're used to.

However, by replacing the weights with resistance bands, you're getting the same effect of the typical shoulder press exercise, and performing this exercise while kneeling will further challenge your core and trunk stability since you're going to find it difficult to keep balanced while trying to perform the exercise.

Make sure that when you're performing this exercise, you're retracting your scapula and bringing your shoulder blades together as you bring the resistance bands down, and protract them in order to make sure you're building upper body functional strength as well as challenging your shoulder muscles a little bit extra.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Banded Tricep/Diamond Pushups

Here's another great pushup variation that's excellent for functional muscle-building at home. This variation of the pushup, which is known as the tricep/diamond/triangle pushup, targets you're entire tricep muscle, and hits all the heads.

This variation is already difficult for many, so if you're able to get strong with this exercise using your bodyweight, adding even a little bit of resistance will challenge your form, and strength tremendously.

This is an excellent exercise to replace you're typical tricep extension exercises, or even your weighted tricep dip exercises.

Like the normal pushups, make sure you're keeping your core tight as you perform this exercise, and make sure you're protracting and retracting your scapula through the motions to challenge your muscles' functional strength.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Resistance Band Rows

Here's a great exercise for your back and pull muscles.

It's extremely difficult to train your back at home unless you have a pull up bar or are able to mimic some other bodyweight row exercises using some chairs. However, when you have a set of resistance bands, you're able to do a lot more variations that will challenge your back muscles heavily.

In this exercise, all you're going to need is a broomstick, and a resistance band. Hinge at your hips and make sure you're back is straight, then using your back muscles, pull the resistance broomstick up to your midline, making sure to squeeze your scapula as you perform the exercise.

This is a great exercise to replace you're typical weighted Rows, and will work your back muscles in a whole different way and allow you to build strength in the different muscles in your back.

You can also do this exercise with an underhand, or overhand grip (the overhand grip is shown above) to work different areas of your back.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Seated Resistance Band Rows

Here's another great pull exercise you can try with a broomstick to challenge your back muscles with.

Similar to the previous exercise, you are going to pull the broomstick to your midline as you are in a seated position, making sure to brace your core and that you're pulling the resistance band into tension with your back muscles and not the other muscles in your arms.

To do this, make sure you're protracting your scapular muscles (which means simply separating your shoulder blades on the eccentric) and as you pull the band towards you, retract them and squeeze your shoulder blades together!

This is an excellent exercise to replace you're typical cable rows that you would do at the gym, and personally, I think this variation of the row is a lot more effective!

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

For a full upper body workout that you can do at home with help of resistance bands and your bodyweight, check out this video on the GoGrind Soccer YouTube Channel!

Lower Body Resistance Band Exercises

Banded SL Box Squat

The single leg box squat is a great substitute for your typical heavy squat lifts.

The reason why this exercise is so effective for at home training is because of the single-leg aspect. By isolating all of your bodyweight + the resistance from the band onto one leg, you are having to apply double the force unilaterally as opposed to doing the exercise bilaterally.

You are also working on your single leg stability, which is essential for athletes since it helps us prevent injury, strengthen other, smaller muscle stabilizer groups, and allow us to produce more force on one foot when performing athletic actions; since we are more comfortable on an unstable footing.

To get the most benefit from this exercise, make sure you are focusing heavily on the eccentric portion (the lowering down) and place all your weight on your quads and hips. Then, once your butt has touched the chair or surface, explode back up in the concentric phase (the motion of going up).

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Banded Single Leg Romanian Deadlift

The single leg RDL is another great exercise that replaces your typical RDL's or deadlifts.

They work the same muscle groups, and also incorporate the aspect of single-leg stability, which, just like the SL box squats, challenges your functional strength and allows you to build muscle, while also building strength in your stabilizer muscles.

The SL RDL is a great option whether you use resistance bands or you use weights, simply because it translates directly to power and force production since you are strengthening the posterior chain of the body, which is essential to your sprinting, and changes of direction.

Make sure that when doing the SL RDL, you are engaging the posterior change, and hinging at the hips while keeping your core braced. This will prevent any other muscle groups from overcompensating and leading to any injuries.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Banded Bulgarian Split Squats

This is another great exercise that should always be a staple to any athlete's lower body strength routine. The Bulgarian split squat is a great exercise to build hip, quad, and glute strength, and is a great exercise to develop your power, which will help you with your explosive movements on the pitch.

This exercise is best done with weights, however, since many people don't have access to a pair of heavy dumbbells or kettlebells, substituting the weights with the resistance from the resistance bands is also a great option to challenge you.

When performing the Bulgarian split squats, make sure that you're going down slowly during the eccentric phase, holding the isometric phase for 1-2 seconds, and then exploding back up in the concentric phase.

This will create lots of tension in your leg muscles which will stimulate the metabolic response to tear the muscle fibers (since they're being pushed passed their limits), which will allow you to build muscle when they recover.

This exercise is probably the best one of the bunch for athletic strength development at home using resistance bands, since it's so essential to your single leg power, your hip strength, knee strength, and you're core and trunk stability.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

Banded Glute Bridge

The last exercise that you can do with Resistance Bands is the banded Glute or Hip Thrust exercise.

This exercise is a great substitute for your heavy barbell hip thrusts, since it works the same muscle groups in the posterior chain, and can also help you build lower back and core strength as well.

The glute bridge is an excellent exercise to build hamstring and glute strength, which is essential to most of the athletic actions you will find yourself performing on the pitch.

When doing this exercise, make sure that your butt and back are in a straight line. Your back shouldn't be too arched and your core should be braced.

This will help you avoid any overcompensation from the lower back muscles, and will allow you to activate your glutes and hamstrings more so you can 'feel' them more.

Sets and Reps: 2-4 Sets of 5-12 Reps

For a full lower body workout you can do at home with Resistance Bands and with your own bodyweight, check out this video on the GoGrind Soccer Youtube Channel:

I hope these help! Thanks for Reading! Get Up. Go GRIND.