- Health, Fitness & Weight Loss
- A Personal Trainer Changed my Life!
- Abdominal Exercise Myths
- Basal Metabolic Rate - Burn Fat while you Sleep
- The Benefits of Swiss Ball Training
- Corporate Fitness Boosts your Bottom Line!
- Corporate Health Tips
- Functional Performance Training
- Goal Setting for Fitness Results
- Guidelines for Body Fat Percentages
- How to Choose your Personal Trainer
- Introducing the BOSU Balance Trainer
- Motivated for Success
- Not All Swiss Balls are Created Equal
- Personal Training Studio vs Gym
- Recovery and Regeneration
- Sizing your Swiss Ball
- Training in your Target Heart Rate Zone
- Walk Off your Waistline
- Weight Loss - Why Weights Work
- Why a REPs PT is your Best Bet
- Why I Fell for my Foam Roller
- 5 Hot Tips for Beating your Winter Woes
- Sport Specific Performance
- Nutrition
- Training with Specific Conditions
- References
Introducing the BOSU Balance Trainer
How the Bosu Balance Trainer will Revitalise your Exercise Programme
The BOSU balance trainer ball works on the principle that training on an unstable environment stimulates more muscles at a deeper level, engaging all your muscles from head to toe in virtually every exercise. The dynamic surface of the BOSU provides the basis for a whole new way of exercising, demanding more energy, control and focus to perform even the simplest of movements.
What a BOSU Does for You
Just standing on a BOSU is challenging enough as your body moves and shifts in to and out of balance. Doing exercises on the BOSU requires you to maintain your center of gravity over a constantly changing surface which stimulates a quick response reaction through the neuromuscular, skeletal and sensory systems, training your body to react with balance, power and movement1.
As you progress the BOSU trains your body to perform movements more efficiently, effectively and functionally, reducing your risk of injury. Using a BOSU will improve your:
- Balance - because the BOSU is never stable, you are constantly engaging small stabiliser muscles and stimulating your neuromuscular system to keep yourself upright.
- Body Awareness - this is of particular concern as you age because falls are one of the main causes of injury in older people. The BOSU trains you to be more body aware at any given moment.
- Proprioception - describes how your body responds to external forces to keep your joints in the correct position2. Training on a BOSU improves your body’s ability to respond to changes in the external environment, giving you confidence in your ability to move with speed, power and stability.
Best of all the BOSU is Versatile
You can use your BOSU for a myriad of exercises that carry over to so many different activities, targeting any one of the following areas:
- Cardio Endurance- the BOSU can be used in short bursts of activity such as hops, jumps, step-ups etc.
- Core Conditioning - like the Swiss Ball the BOSU is a great tool for targeting core musculature.
- Strength Training - adding a BOSU brings a whole new challenge to your squats, lunges, deadlifts, pulls and pushes.
- Balance, Flexibility and Stability - using the BOSU while doing dynamic and static stretching will add more range of motion while challenging your stability and balance.
- Sports Specific Training - a BOSU can be incorporated into sports specific drills like jumping or plyometric moves, to increase performance and agility2.
The BOSU's versatility will inject your training with a new lease of life, making work outs more enjoyable and challenging. This is why the BOSU is fast becoming a standard training apparatus in all good training facility around the world. Find out what you've been missing. Try one for yourself.
By Hamish Abbie BPhEd, BComm, CHEK L1, XLR8 Coach, REPs - 05/05/08