A resistance band workout that's surprisingly spicy

This week, I’ve got a fun workout for you based on two HTM reader requests:

1. A standing-only workout

2. A resistance band workout

(These were not from the same person, so apologies to the stander if you don’t have a resistance bands, and to the band-er if you hate standing! Not the last time we’ll visit these themes, though.)

I actually have a programming client (and HTM subscriber!) who started working with me specifically because she was looking for exercises that didn’t involve lying or sitting on the floor. She has a perfect, giant angel of a dog who sheds heavily, and it felt like if she wanted to exercise without triggering an allergy attack, she had to vacuum first — and we all know it’s often already hard enough to get yourself to exercise without adding cleaning into the mix as a barrier to entry. It was fun to design a program for her with this constraint, and we came up with some great approaches.

And then, bands: While resistance bands aren’t my normal go-to tool for exercise, they can be so great — especially if you don’t have the space or budget for dumbbells, or you’re away from home and just want to throw something tiny into your suitcase. I do want you lifting heavy dumbbells to the extent possible, but I see bands as a really lovely next best thing. Especially since it can be so easy to adjust the resistance (you just have to hold the band in a different spot, adding slack or taking it away; and of course they also make bands in different “weights” AKA levels of resistance).

I do feel like everyone has a different kind of band, though, so I’m using two kinds in this workout (until a big surprise happened — you’ll have to subscribe to find out, ha ha!). And you can do most of these moves with pretty much any kind of band! A giant loop “megaband,” a smaller loop band, a long tube band with handles, or a ribbon band like you’d use in a PT setting.

If you don’t have any bands, you can use dumbbells for many of the moves, or even an old pair of tights or leggings you don’t mind stretching out. (This is a great way to give old hosiery a second life, btw.)

I’ll give no-band and no-standing alternatives for each of these exercises in the writeup below, so don’t stress if the whole standing-band workout doesn’t feel like the right fit for you.

And as always and forever, make this workout work for you. All of the following options are very much available to you should they be a better fit for the amount of time or energy you have:

• Skip the warmup

• Skip the cooldown

• Only do one or two rounds of the resistance circuit

• Pause the video and take longer breaks

OK, enough of that, let’s go!