Which Resistance Level Should You Start With?
Lighter than you think, and here's the ten-rep test that proves it. How to pick a starting level, how to know it's right, and when to move up.
Short answer: lighter than you think.
Longer answer below, because "start light" is easy to say and hard to act on when you're standing in front of three options and don't want to waste money on the wrong one.
Why most people start too heavy
Resistance bands don't feel like much when you hold them in your hands. You stretch one between your fists, it gives easily, and you think: that's nothing.
Then you put it above your knees and do twelve side steps, and your hips are on fire.
Your legs are strong. Your hip stabilisers, the small muscles on the outside of the hip that a band actually targets, usually aren't. Especially if you sit for most of the day. Those are the muscles that decide whether the band feels manageable or brutal, and they're the ones nobody has been training.
Start with Small
If you're new to this, or coming back after a break of more than a few months, start at the lightest level.
Not because you're weak. Because the first weeks are about learning the movements properly, and you can't do that while you're fighting the band. Poor form under heavy resistance is how people end up with a sore lower back and the conclusion that strength training isn't for them.
You will outgrow it. That's fine. Outgrowing a band in six weeks is a good problem.
How to tell you've got it right
Do ten repetitions of a glute bridge with the band above your knees.
- Reps 1 to 7 feel comfortable, 8 to 10 are hard but doable — that's the right level
- You could do twenty more — too light
- You lose form by rep 5, or you feel it in your lower back instead of your glutes — too heavy
The last one matters most. If the band is forcing you out of position, it's not making the exercise harder. It's making it a different, worse exercise.
When to move up
When twelve repetitions feel like the first seven used to. For most people that's somewhere between four and eight weeks of training two or three times a week.
Move one level, not two. And change one thing at a time: either tighten the band or add a round, never both in the same week. If something starts hurting, you want to know which change caused it.
