Resistance bands are an excellent tool for levelling up your calisthenics game, and there are so many ways you can incorporate them in your training. Want to complete your first pull-up? First muscle up? Working on the front lever? Or maybe you’re already full beast mode in calisthenics and are aiming for your first one-armed pull up. Resistance bands can function as the bridge between your hard work - and perhaps having enough strength - to being able to execute what are often quite technical movements. They allow you to perform calisthenics movements the exact way they should be, through the full range of motion, but with assistance.

Get the best and most durable 100% Natural Rubber Resistance Bands from Movement Made!

Hope you like Backstreet Boys, ‘cause after reading this article or watching this video you’re going to be a professional band member!

So resistance bands can, in fact, assist! Shockingly, they can also be used as additional resistance! Banded one-legged squats, or banded dips, for example.

Finally, resistance bands can also be used to perform exercises all on their own. I.e., they are the sole form of resistance.

So, you’ve got: 1. Band-assisted bodyweight exercises 2. Band-resisted exercises 3. Banded exercises, i.e. bands=the resistance

In this article, I’m going to go over number 1 and 2: band-assisted bodyweight exercises, and band-resisted exercises.

If you want the resistance bands themselves to function as your mobile gym - say you’re traveling or just want a quick pump - then you’ll want to use banded exercises, such as banded curls and tricep extensions. You can find a video of mine for those here, and I’ll be posting a blog about it soon as well.

Let’s get into all the different ways you can use resistance bands, as well as progressions you can work through. Starting with a timeless movement: Pull Ups.

(*Has the intro already sold you on getting a pair of bands?! Check out my sustainably/ethically produced bands here. *)

Pull ups:

You can use resistance bands to learn pull-ups, or to progress with them, and you can also use them to do muscle ups - slow or explosive, on the rings or on the bars.

Below are a bunch of pull-up exercises you can do with bands. They are all* “band-assisted”, so, I’ll remove that part from the exercises names:

Pull up exercises:

pull ups
explosive pull ups
ring pull ups
one-arm pull up
Wedgie one-arm pull up
Wedgie ring one arm pull up
explosive bar muscle up
Slow ring muscle up

Here’s a clip of the pull-up progressions you can use bands with.

Dips

Moving on to one of the best compound movements in the game: dips! When training dips, you can use resistance bands for assistance or added resistance, on the rings or on dip bars.

Here are some dip progressions you can try to work through. Be careful, though! You work through too many of these, you might just become a chip magnet! Ahem, I mean a chick magnet.

Band assisted dip, hard/moderate
Band resisted dips
Full band assisted ring dips (easiest)
Half band assisted ring dips (hardest)
Band assisted ring dips w/ knees (medium)
Band assisted bulgarian ring dips, full band (hardest)
Band assisted bulgarian ring dips, on knees (medium)
Band resisted ring dips
Band resisted bulgarian ring dips

Here’s a clip of the dip progressions you can use bands with.

Front Lever (on rings)

The Front Lever: a show of strength mastery

Getting to some pretty seeeerious movements now. The front lever! A lat and core killer, the front lever is an exercise many people will likely never even consider trying to master. But with consistent training, and training in the most effective way possible, anyone can master them.

Here are some front lever related exercises that you can use resistance bands with. (*Note, All of these progressions can be done on a bar, but it’s slightly more inconvenient, as the height on a bar is not adjustable. )

Band-assisted tuck front lever
Band-assisted 1 leg half lay
Band-assisted open half lay
Half band-assisted half lay
Band-assisted half lay raises
Band assisted front lever (foot)
Band-assisted front lever (torso)

Here’s a clip of the front lever progressions you can use bands with.

Planche

Using bands is also - arguably - the best way of learning the planche and all the planche progressions. One thing to keep in mind for planche training with bands is that the setup is quite important. Specifically, it’s important that where you place your hands is directly below the anchor point of the bands.

Once you’re set up, simply put the band around the hips, and train away.

Planche exercises(all band-assisted):

tuck planche
advanced tuck planche
1 leg half lay
open half lay

Here’s a clip of the planche progressions you can use bands with.

Back Lever

You can also use bands for training the back lever! Especially for back lever, though, I recommend using rings. Back lever progressions(all band-assisted)

tuck back lever
advanced tuck back lever
1 leg half lay
open half lay
straddle back lever
(full) back lever

Squats

You can add a *lot* of resistance by simply using a band when performing the single-legged squat/pistol squat.

You can use bands to assist or resist your squats. Here are some different squat progressions you can do with the bands:

Assisted pistol squat
Resisted pistol squat

When training squats with the bands, if you want to make your training more trackable and quantifiable, you can use the bands along with the multi-strap. Step on the multi-strap and then adjust the clips higher away from your foot (easier/less resistance) or lower towards your foot (more difficult/more resistance), and then perform the resisted squats.

Vertical jumps

Bands can also be used to train your vertical jump, by training band-resisted jumps.

Some things to keep in mind for using bands to train your vertical jump.

Use something like a multi strap to attach the band to, to avoid putting too much tension on the band and snapping it.
Use a low anchor point.
Keep the distance from your feet to the anchor point about the length of your lower leg.
Tip: Holding the band helps a bit with balance.

Tip!

To stay consistent with how much assistance you are providing across different movements, using something like this multi-strap (link) is helpful. You can attach the resistance points to whatever clip, and take note of where you’ve clipped it, that way you know that each time you perform a given exercise, you are getting the same assistance.

When a movement becomes too easy, you can use less assistance by moving it one clip closer, for example.

Wrapping up

Boom! There you have it. (Approximately?) 40 exercise progressions you can incorporate bands with. All you need now is a pull up bar, or a pair of rings! If you wanna try rings out, and don’t have a pair, you can grab a pair of mine here. And if you need bands, you can get bands at the same place.

What is your favorite use for resistance bands? What movement are you looking forward to training with them? Let me know, or hit me up with any questions or comments, and I will do my best to get back to you.

Happy training guys!

Share post!

Resistance Band Bible: Calisthenics Exercises