(I received this product as a gift or at a discount in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.)
After using and enjoying the Limm jump rope, I was happy to try the Limm resistance loop bands (you can get these bands here). I’ve long been a fan of resistance bands: you can add a strength challenge to your workout without spending a lot of money or needing a lot of storage space, and they’re great to pack along when traveling.
These arrived in a small box. Inside, the five bands (each a different level of resistance) were each wrapped in plastic and stored in a mesh carrying case.
The resistance loop bands come with a workout guide showing and explaining nine different exercises you can do with the bands. The guide also includes thorough workout safety instructions and exercise tips.
Of the exercises on the guide, I’m not impressed with all of them. I usually love doing tricep extensions with a band, but these bands do not stretch far enough to accommodate the exercise as shown. Even when I used the lightest weight band, I had to move my bottom arm up high on my back, and it still felt like the band could break at any moment. All that, and I didn’t get enough resistance to make the exercise worthwhile.
I also don’t like the bicep curl as shown, because it doesn’t allow you to work through the full range of motion. Even if you adapt the positioning (holding one end of the band in a different manner that would allow you to extend the working arm fully), the band doesn’t stretch enough to allow you to complete the movement. At least for me with my long arms and legs. 🙂 Same problem with the oblique twists: the bands don’t stretch that far.
It says in the safety instructions not to extend the band beyond two times its resting length.
More bad news: the red band broke the first time I stretched it. I wasn’t even stretching it far. I had just gotten it out of the package and was testing the tension. The good news is that now it’s long enough to use for those tricep extensions!
I do love using these resistance loop bands for the Hip Extension in Quadruped as shown in the workout guide. I do that exercise (and some variation on it) every other day to help correct the IT band syndrome (and prevent future IT band pain) I’ve been dealing with, and these bands are a great way to get extra resistance on it. It can be difficult to rig an unlooped band for this exercise to get the resistance you want, but these are just perfect.
I also like them for the other leg exercises, like Standing Hip Extension and Abduction.
Although I do like them for those three exercises and a couple of others, I think overall the bands are better suited for someone doing physical therapy or rehab, or for someone who is brand new to exercise. If that’s you, you might like to consider giving these a try. They just don’t offer the level of resistance through a wide range of motion that I’m looking for on most exercises. So, they’re not the best bands for my purposes, and if you’re an advanced exerciser you will probably find the same to be true for you..
My dog Max, however, is a huge fan. 🙂
