Aurorae Yoga Resistance Bands Review / Giveaway

I was contacted this winter by someone at Aurorae Yoga asking me to review some resistance bands. My first thought was "I'm not a 60-year-old woman, so I'm not interested." (I didn't tell them that - I have SOME tact.) But then I looked them up on Amazon and heard people saying really good things about them. At the time, there were 15 reviews, and all were 5-stars and raved about the quality, especially regarding the handles. (And at the time I'm writing this 6 months after I learned about them, there are 47 reviews on Amazon with 45 being "5 star," one "4 star," and one "3 star.") So I bit. I had them send me a set to try.

Here's what it looks like - everything fits nicely into this little zipper bag:

This instruction guide was in the bag, along with the items shown on the cover:
5 bands, 2 handles, an ankle strap, and a door anchor.

The instruction guide was very helpful. It has just a few pages of "how everything works," and then the majority of it is 20 pages or so of different possible exercises. I know different exercises to do at the gym for different muscle groups (with free weights and machines), but I was less sure what to do with the bands at home, so having 20 pages of things like this really helped me get going:

The "door anchor" is the coolest thing. It's basically a strap that's sewn into a loop with a hard ball inside it at one end. That way you can essentially "slam" the strap into a door frame, and the ball will keep it from coming out, so then you can put a band through the other end and workout:

The Aurorae people sent me a few pics, but this was the only one I thought
you should see - it shows the door anchor in use with one of the bands.

Oh, and obviously, the 5 bands included are at different resistances, and here's the chart for that:

OK, but did I USE them?

Yep, a couple of times. Just call me Grandma.

If you stop by now-and-then to see what I'm up to on my blog, you know I have 2 boys (1-year and 4-years). Sometimes we run short on time. Sometimes, my slightly crabby 1-year-old gets us kicked out of the Y for being too loud/noisy/crabby. These bands actually came in helpful 3 or 4 times late winter / early spring when I missed some workouts. I didn't take any pics of me working out with the bands at the time because those workouts were always last-minute "let's see what I can do before the boys wake up from their naps" sort of workouts. Here are my thoughts on them in a bullet-pointed list:

• The first thing worth noting is the quality. The Amazon reviews were right. The handles rock. They are very ridged so they won't collapse under weight, and they're nicely padded on top of that. The carabiners for clipping on different bands are solid. The straps are thick and really sewn together well.

• Surprisingly, the resistance bands offer EVEN resistance! I expected them to offer a little resistance at first, and then get "harder" the more I stretched them. (Does that make sense?) But they offer a very even resistance whether they were stretched 6 inches or 3 feet. This was nice, and made the exercises feel like a "normal" workout on the machines or with free-weights at the gym.

• Because of my buff #DadBod (it's OK to snicker), I generally used the 2 higher resistance bands: black and red. And for certain chest moves, I actually used them both at once to REALLY up the resistance. (You can see that being done in one of the "instruction" pics above with the guy doing the seated back row.)

• Overall, the workouts I did with these resistance bands were "lower weight and higher repetition" workouts. You won't be working with bands like this and trying to do 5-8 rep sets to build lots of bulk. These were good for 12-25 rep sets (at least for me). But because the movements are so fluid and not done on a bench or with a machine, you're working lots of other little muscles too, so you CAN get a workout from these. Really. (I'm used to benching with between 135 lbs and 175 lbs on the bar at the gym, and I was able to use these and still feel like I was doing something.)

• And this is worth mentioning: because they are BANDS, I was afraid they were going to snap or break the first time I used them and really "cranked" on them. But after a few reps, I had faith. And in the few workouts since then, I haven't worried or flinched.


THE FOLKS AT AURORAE YOGA ARE LETTING MY READERS WIN A SET OF THEIR RESISTANCE BANDS LIKE THEY SENT ME. LET'S MAKE THIS EASY:

To enter, simply comment on this blog post. It's that easy. Comment anything. "Hey Steve, it's John Doe from Nowheresville. I wanna work on my #DadBod, so I could use these bands." That works. Or maybe: "Hey tiny penis: gimme." Technically, that comment would have you entered. (Although I'd kinda be rooting for you NOT to win.)

I'll use random.org to pick a random winner from all the comments. I'll pick a winner sometime mid to late next week (around the 15th or 16th), so make sure to check back, ESPECIALLY if you don't have a Blogger or Google account because I might not be able to get a hold of you.

Pseudo-legal stuff:
- Contest only open to residents of the US. Sorry rest-of-the-world.
- You may comment now on this post through Tuesday, July 14th.
- The winner will be chosen at random by a random number generator or by drawing numbers out of a hat.
- Check back to see if you won! Especially if you don't have a blogger account.
- If the winner does not contact me within 2 days after being announced, I'll be forced to draw a new winner. So check back and KEEP checking back in case the winner is lame!
- And as always, Aurorae Yoga just gave me these bands to review; they didn't ask me to say anything or sway my review in any way.

So just leave a comment to be entered. Do it now! (Before the end of the day on July 14th.)

Get more info on the Aurorae website here.

And enter yesterday's CEP Compression Sock giveaway here.