Resistance bands are, in my opinion, the most creative way to train your body. Not only are they incredibly safe to use, but they also offer a pretty good challenge for all your muscle groups, especially if you’re a beginner. Do you want to train your arms? No worries! just hold them in a certain way that allows you to do so. Maybe you want to train your chest? They got you! Just stick them on something behind you and push with your arms. They offer all kinds of exercise variations and the only limit is your creativity. But what if you want to use them at your local gym? Are they available? More particularly, does planet fitness have resistance bands?
Some Planet Fitness locations do have resistance bands so you may find a few of them laying around. However, in some cases, they may be limited to personal trainers and their clients so it may be a good idea to ask around for them or just bring your own.
In this article, we’ll talk about if Planet Fitness offers resistance bands, and what you can do in case your local one doesn’t.
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Does Planet Fitness Have Resistance Bands?
With the multitude of equipment, machines, services, and free weights that Planet Fitness offers, you may think that resistance bands will be part of their arsenal. However, surprisingly enough, not all Planet fitness locations have them, and even if they do, they’re usually reserved for personal trainers and their clients.
I know what you’re thinking, surely Planet Fitness should have plenty of them available but they don’t! why is that the case?
Well, there are two main reasons behind this situation:
First of all, Planet fitness as a franchise mostly targets beginners, those who are new to exercising, and those who really hate it. So, automatically, their gyms will be equivalent to their mindset and business model, meaning that they won’t have all the advanced machinery or some types of equipment that are specific.
Resistance bands are pretty advanced and most beginners won’t have a clue on how to use them which is exactly why the ones that are available at Planet Fitness are reserved only for members with personal trainers.
The second reason is the fact that not a lot of people in the United States use resistance bands compared to other types of equipment, so why would Planet Fitness waste resources on something that will barely be used instead of investing it in something that has been proven to get used like treadmills, Stairmasters, weights, and so on.
With that being said, it’s always a great idea to contact your local gym beforehand and check whether or not they offer resistance bands since not all of them will.
What’s the Alternative?
In case your local gym doesn’t offer resistance bands (and there is a high probability of that), or they’re limited to certain users only, there are a couple of things that you can do:
Buy Your Own Set of Resistance Bands
Why would you want to look for and waste your efforts on something that you’ll probably not find when you can just buy a set of resistance bands of your own?
Since I used to own a Planet Fitness membership and train there all the time, occasionally, I would bring my own set of resistance bands and it wasn’t a problem for them as long as I showed it to them at the beginning to prove that they were mine.
You can find some cheap ones in most fitness stores and if you’re not sure what to pick, here are the ones that I always use.
Ask Your Gym About Them
If you scouted your gym but couldn’t find any, that doesn’t mean that they’re not there. Maybe they were put somewhere that you missed, or they’re in a hidden compartment, or as I mentioned in the beginning, they’re reserved for members with personal trainers.
The best way to really verify their availability is to ask the staff about them. If the gym really doesn’t offer them, they’ll just tell you and save your time, if they’re available only for certain members, I’m sure that if you ask them politely, they’ll allow you to use them, especially if you’re in good terms with the gym.
Most of the time, they’re just worried that you may take them home with you since that happens all the time which is why they keep them hidden.
Use Alternative equipment
If you really think about it, resistance bands are just normal bands that offer some sort of resistance to your muscles in order to increase tension which results in them becoming stronger and bigger. And that’s exactly what most equipments at Planet Fitness do.
The only added benefit to resistance bands that I can think of is their safety and the fact that you can use a variety of exercises that targets multiple muscle groups as long as you’re creative.
However, having the ability to do multiple exercises with a single piece of equipment isn’t that impressive since you’re already at the gym which allows you to do just that.
If you’re at home and don’t have the ability to go to the gym, I understand how resistance bands can be of great use, but that’s not the case here.
There are plenty of alternatives like cable machines, dumbbells, and so on.
Conclusion:
Now you understand why Planet fitness and pretty much the majority of other gyms don’t offer resistance bands. If you’re lucky, you’ll find them straight away, if not, just ask around for them, bring a set of your own, or just use alternative equipment that will have the same results.
