I swapped barbells for a banded resistance bar — and it transformed my strength training

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Working out with a barbell comes with loads of benefits. This weight room staple can help you build lean muscle mass, improve your balance and posture, increase your overall strength, and amp up your performance in other athletic pursuits.

Barbells can be intimidating though, especially if you’re a beginner. They may be somewhat unwieldy during your first squat or bench press attempts, and they’re also 45 pounds without any added weight. Those two factors combined are often enough to make novices avoid them altogether.

I’m no stranger to barbell work, but pregnancy has impacted my usual exercise routine. I’ve been looking for a way to get back to basics, so I decided to swap barbells and dumbbells for a banded resistance bar instead. I expected that my workouts might feel “easier” in comparison, but what I didn’t expect was that it would change my strength training program in several positive ways.

What is a banded resistance bar?

A banded resistance bar is a long metal or plastic bar, much lighter and shorter than a standard barbell. A wide range of bands can be attached at the ends of the bar, allowing you to mimic certain barbell exercises at various resistance levels.

Some banded resistance bars come with platform or base attachments, and some come with foot loops.

I chose to work on four major barbell exercises that had become tricky at eight months pregnant: squats, deadlifts, chest presses, and overhead presses. Here’s what I found after making the switch.

I focused more on form

Proper exercise form is crucial no matter what you’re doing. However, when you’re lifting very heavy and you just need to finish the rep, sometimes your form can be less than perfect.

Working with a shorter bar and a different weight displacement allowed me to go slower, focus on engaging the right muscle groups, and stabilize my body appropriately.

Trading my barbell for a banded resistance bar helped me narrow in on some form deficits I had been trying to correct. Going lighter is always an option when fixing form issues, but in this case working with a shorter bar and a different weight displacement allowed me to go slower, focus on engaging the right muscle groups, and stabilize my body appropriately. My squats felt a lot stronger and my deadlifts didn’t aggravate my lower back.

Banded resistance bars can be great for form correction, but they can also be beneficial for the barbell-curious. A beginner can get used to the “feel” of a barbell by using a lighter banded resistance bar, and learn certain barbell exercises with a similar (but less intense) piece of equipment. When you’ve built up enough strength for the real thing, you’ll be better prepared to tackle the major movements.

I could continue to work through a minor injury

I’ve been dealing with some minor impingement in my right shoulder, and bench presses have been unstable and painful as a result. Pregnancy has kept me from getting underneath a bar anyway (lying flat on the back while pregnant can cause compression of the Vena Cava, a vein that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body), but even before pregnancy, I had been forced to skip the move.

Using a banded resistance bar, I was able to work through a proper chest press range of motion with far less pain and instability — something I hadn’t been able to do with an unweighted barbell or even light dumbbells. My sore pecs the next day let me know I’d been engaging the right muscles for the job, and that they may have been underutilized in previous chest and bench presses.

If you’re dealing with an injury or even some chronic aches and pains, a banded resistance bar may be the right way to reintroduce certain exercises.

I practiced tougher moves

Because of the previously mentioned shoulder impingement, I’ve always had to do overhead presses using dumbbells and machines. Previous tries with a barbell have always felt a hair too heavy and slightly dangerous, even if the bar was unweighted.

Since you can mimic barbell movements with the much-lighter banded resistance bar, I could practice barbell overhead presses without feeling like I was on the precipice of injury. This was a great way to get my body used to the technique, even if I won’t be able to work on it for a few weeks after giving birth. Once I recover, I’ll definitely start working more with the banded resistance bar on this specific exercise.

It challenged my stability

Just like the weight displacement differs between a dumbbell and a kettlebell, it also differs between a barbell and a banded resistance bar. A band’s resistance changes as it’s stretched and released, which challenges your body to stabilize itself differently against the varying forces.

I noticed this a lot during the descent of my squat, and I had to adjust my center of gravity accordingly. This also forced me to engage certain stabilizing muscles in my core to keep my balance.

The stronger and more conditioned these core stabilizers are, the better they can support your body when you’re going for a one-rep max on your barbell squat.

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Jennifer Rizzuto is a freelance writer and certified personal trainer based in Long Island, NY. She covers various fitness-related topics and reviews for Tom's Guide. She also writes sketch comedy and short films, and performs frequently as an actor, singer, and improviser. When she's not writing, working out, or performing, you'll find her trying to convince her husband to get a dog.