Resistance bands are by far our #1 piece of fitness equipment for the RV. But not just any style of resistance bands, but loop style resistance bands specifically.
Fitness isn’t just our main hobby and passion, but it is also our career. I am a NASM certified personal trainer and I coach clients across the country, 100% online. So when we hit the road full-time in January 2019, we were on a mission to have the perfect RV gym. Over the years we have tried so many different pieces of equipment. From adjustable to fixed dumbbells, handle style to loop style resistance bands, bodyweight workouts, and even national gyms.
In 2020 we purchased our first set of the loop style resistance bands. Our fitness world was forever changed. These are the reasons why we fell in love with the bands, and why we recommend them to other RVers.
Small Footprint
A complete 5-piece kit of loop-style resistance bands is remarkably lightweight. Less than 3 pounds to be exact. Not only are they lightweight, but they are also compact. Being both lightweight and compact gives the loop style resistance bands a wonderfully small footprint. Storage space is very limited in an RV, so this earns big points for us! When you compare the space and weight to what dumbbells take onboard your RV, the bands win by a landslide.
Portable
Workout wherever you want. Whether it’s inside your RV or outside in nature. Of course, many of us would prefer to workout outdoors, in beautiful Instagram-worthy locations. Think beaches, mountain tops, and sand dunes. Well, you actually can with these bands. Throw them in a backpack, into your purse, car, or onto your bike, and take them anywhere to workout.
We like to store the bands inside of our RV where they are easy to get to. Easy access makes working out a breeze. If it’s a pain in the butt to set up your equipment, that’s just one more excuse not to workout. Make it easy on yourself by having them readily available. Storing them inside your RV makes it super easy to get those early morning workouts in. Even if it is cold and rainy outside.
Affordable
You can purchase a complete set of high-quality loop-style resistance bands for under $100. This includes a universal anchor (that comes with the kit) and even gloves (purchased separately). If you compare this to the cost of dumbbells, you will see how affordable the bands are. Now don’t get us wrong, we do love dumbbells. We are simply using them as a comparison as the two best options for RV Strength Training Equipment are resistance bands and dumbbells.
Simple Design
These loop-style bands do not have any clunky hardware, handles, or carabiners. This makes for a quick and easy setup no matter where you workout. Less thinking, more doing. No negotiating with yourself on if you should or shouldn’t work out.
The loop style allows you to perform exercises using an anchor or not using an anchor. The non anchored movements simply use your body as anchor points, mostly your feet. The non-anchored movements allow you to get a full-body workout inside of your RV without any anchor requirements. Once again, this earns big points for us. There are some handle style bands or TRX systems that require a robust anchor system in order to operate, making indoor workouts impossible for some RVers.
Replaces all Gym Machines
With loop bands, you are able to perform exercises in all various planes. You can incorporate different lifting angles without being limited to gravity. You can now have resistance in any direction. For example, with dumbbells, you are mostly limited to weights moving only up and down. With dumbbells, you need to lie flat on your back for a chest press. With resistance bands, you can stand up and press out, instead of up. This means you no longer need a bench on chest day. You also no longer need a bench for incline or preacher curls…
When you are using anchor points, the bands are an excellent replacement for the cable machine. Think lat pull downs, tricep pushdowns, lateral raises, etc. You will get fantastic angles of tension here and will incorporate your core. When we first started out with the bands we used only non-anchored exercises. This allowed us to really get a feel for the bands, and to see what we could do strictly inside of our RV. When we stepped it up and introduced anchored movements we fell in love with the bands all over again.
Variable Resistance
A huge advantage to the loop style is that each band has variable resistance. This means you can adjust the resistance simply by shortening or lengthening the band. You can adjust your grip position to do this, or adjust your foot position. This is where the loop style gain points over the handle/tube style bands. If you are working with bands that have handles and attachments, you don’t have the option to change your gripping point, and you are stuck with one level of tension. When we tested out the handle style bands, our biggest complaint was that we struggled to find tension.
The 5-piece kit comes with 5 different bands, each having varying levels of resistance.
- Extra Light (XL) = 5-15 pounds
- Light (L) = 20-35 pounds
- Medium (M) = 30-50 pounds
- Heavy (H) = 40-80 pounds
- Extra Heavy (XH) = 50-120 pounds
One of my favorite features about the bands is the ability to “stack” them. Let’s say the light band is too light, no matter how tight you grip it. When you try to move up to the medium band, it is too difficult, no matter how to lose your grip. You can stack the XL band with the L band and will find the perfect tension to help you step up to the M.
Constant Tension Through Entire Range of Motion
Using resistance bands forces you to control your concentric, isometric, and eccentric (negative) movements. If you come in and try to use bands for the first time and don’t control your eccentric you will get snapped by the bands. Compared to dumbbells, where gravity pulls your eccentric back down, bands literally force you to hold the tension during the way back down. Every rep is controlled and you increase your time under tension. This results in a highly effective workout.
More Athletic and Functional
As you use these resistance bands, the band tries to pull you in all these different directions you are firing up your stabilizer muscles. You are using your muscles in a new way. It is much more athletic and functional as compared to sitting on a bench or a machine.
You may also find the bands are safer on your joints, and you have a minimized risk of injury as compared to heavy dumbbells.
Resistance Bands Take the Win
It is an easy decision for us to name these loop-style resistance bands #1 for RVers. They truly are the perfect strength training equipment to carry onboard your RV. They are portable, affordable, and most importantly, effective. What are you waiting for!?
The Brand We Use, Love, and Recommend
There are many brands of loop-style bands on the market. We use and love the Undersun Fitness brand. Below is a link to the kit we use and recommend. You can use the code “IreneIron” on the bands and accessories, such as gloves. After purchasing our first set of these bands in early 2020, we fell in love. We then became affiliates for the brand because we believe in their product and think they are perfect for RVers. So we do make a small affiliate fee if you use our link. We appreciate your support!
We really appreciated this article and we will look to getting some of these types of bands. Even though we are not “officially “ FT RVers like yourselves, we do spend a considerable amount of time in our RV. What are the brand of bands that you all use? We want to go with something that is tried, proven and of good quality. Again, great information that you are always putting out. Thanks and God Bless you both!
Hi Ren. Thank you so much for the feedback, we really appreciate it. We love the Undersun Fitness brand. Here is a link to the kit we use and recommend: https://bit.ly/3iGFQIA You can use the code “IreneIron” on the bands, and accessories. After purchasing our first set of these bands over two years ago we fell in love. We then became affiliates for the brand because we believe in their product and think they are perfect for RVers. So we do make a small affiliate fee if you use our link. We appreciate your support!
Awesome! We will definitely use this link and order a set. Time to get our work out on and get back to living healthy. Thanks!
Ren & Veronica O’Neal