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Beautifully Balanced. W.O.W.

By Lozi

In February we seek BALANCE in your workouts!

Dodging the winter's snowy sidewalks. Strutting the halls in heels. Hiking (or LoziLu-ing) through a wooded trail. Riding a bike. Hitting the slopes. Doing core work on a stability ball. These are all just the fun things we have the pleasure of doing when living an active, healthy life. Believe it or not, these all require your body to kick it's balancing act into high gear - even if you're not even thinking about it. A strong core (no, not just your abs but EVERYTHING in between your hips and shoulders) goes hand in hand with good balance. By training your body for better balance, you'll see improvements not only in your athletic skills and recreational pursuits but you'll also see improved overall coordination (think juggling your laptop bag, coffee and keys all while trying to open a heavy door and talking on the phone), improved posture (look better and decrease back pain, I'll take some of that!), decreased injuries and prevention of falls (especially as you age).

Let's do a quick balance test to check in. Imagine you're Gabby Douglas one the balance beam. Stand up. Place one foot in front of the other so you are standing heel to toe. Keep both feet flat on the floor. How are you doing? Ok here? Now close your eyes. If you can keep your balance with eyes closed for 30 seconds you're doing pretty well. If you start to wobble as soon as you close your eyes - or maybe even before you close your eyes- then you've got some balance work to do.

Before we start looking at the ways in which you can train for better balance, let me explain what's going on. Proprioception. Pro-what? Proprioception is your body's ability to gather information about your position in the space around you and then interpret and use that info to keep you on your feet. The body is a very complex sensory system. It takes all of the environmental feedback provided - from cues at the bottom of your feet to the sensory neurons in your inner ear to what you see – and determines how your body needs to adjust by activating or deactivating particular muscles to maintain or move positions. Your body is doing this all day long; when you reach on your tip toes to grab something off the top shelf, when you hop out of your car or head out for a run. However, when all of the information that is received is too complex, your system gets overwhelmed and loses balance.

Good news- there are many simple ways to incorporate balance training into your regular workouts to quickly see improvements in everyday tasks as well as your fun, active pursuits.
1. Change your base of support. Think back to all that we talked about in your January STABILITY workouts. When performing an exercise, a wide base of support (feet positioned hip width distance apart) will be more stable and easier to balance than a narrow (feet together) base of support.
2. Try it on one leg. If you can handle a narrow base of support you may be ready to move to a single leg stance. Start by picking one foot off the ground slightly during simple exercises. As you master that try raising the leg higher off the ground or out to the side. Just remember to switch your balancing leg to keep both your left side and right side up to "balanced."
3. Turn out the lights. Ok, maybe just try closing your eyes. Your sense of vision in partnership with your inner ear is incredibly important to proprioceptive feedback for maintaining balance. Safety first! Try this only if you are ready for it and do so in a safe and controlled manner. Start by simply working on some standing or single leg balance and then close the eyes, you can progress to something more challenging like a static lunge with your eyes closed.
4. Train using balance tools that provide and unstable environment. You can use balance discs, wobble boards, a BOSU, half foam rollers or even a stability ball to challenge that balance. An example would be performing a squat on a BOSU or wobble board. Again, progress to this safely and only if you are ready for it.

For each of our workouts this month, we'll visit familiar movements but add in options to challenge and train your balance.

W.O.W. 2/4/2013
This week, be sure to get each of these workouts in at least once. For a third balance workout, choose the 5 exercises that challenged your balance most and complete them as a circuit twice through in the middle of a 30 minute cardio session.

Workout #1: Balancing Act.

Workout #2: No Weeble Wobbling Allowed.