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Stability Training

I like different styles of training.  Thinking out of the box often leads to inspiring workouts.  Stability balls are nothing new and have been a mainstay in most gyms for the last 10 years.  But take a look around most gyms and you will find them buried in a corner or hidden in the aerobics room collecting dust.  Once in awhile you will find someone doing basic crunches on them or see someone resting on one in between their squat sets.  But stability balls offer so much more and should become a staple in your training.

There has been a lot of talk and reports indicating the importance of incorporating some type of stability training into your normal fitness routine.  Stability training has been growing in popularity with many commercial and private gyms offering some type of stability training.  There are also countless stability products on the market available for purchase.

Stability training is exactly what it sounds like: training with an element of instability.  Training on an unstable surface will have great impact on the stabilizers and neutralizers of all the joints involved.  In addition, stability training increases the strength of your postural and stabilization muscles.  The postural and stabilization muscles are the tiny little muscles located around the joints, whose purpose is to control the movement of that joint.  When performing traditional exercises, these muscles are not activated fully thereby limiting their growth potential and effectiveness. 

An unstable base could be as simple as standing on one leg while performing standing exercises.  Stability equipment comes in many shapes and sizes, but the most common forms are stability balls, foam rollers, foam pads, BOSU® balance trainer, and wobble boards.  Stability equipment has been used in the rehabilitative setting since the 1960’s.  Growing in popularity with proven results, it became a mainstay in the fitness arena around the 1990’s.

Stability training sends information to the central nervous system allowing it to record stabilization patterns within the muscular system.  These stabilization patters will eventually become reflexes which the body naturally uses to help in maintaining its postural balance.  This improvement in postural balance allows for greater functional strength and an improved transfer of energy from the lower body to the upper body.  In addition, stability training improves the body’s proprioceptive response.  Proprioception is the body’s ability to sense position, location and movement of all its’ joints.  The cooperation between the nervous and muscular systems is known as the neuromuscular relationship.  It is within this relationship that the body improves its’ proprioception.

The primer movers, the major muscle group involved in a movement, in any exercise can only provide the amount of force that the core can support.  By incorporation stability training into your program you not only improve your proprioceptive response and strength and stability of the joints, but you will increase the strength of your core as well.  The core provides your body with the necessary pressure to maintain posture and to keep the body upright.  The main role of the core muscles is to stabilize and neutralize the spine, reducing the amount of stress placed onto the vertebral column and to flex, extend and rotate the trunk.  A strong core will help transmit strength and power generated from the lower extremities to the upper extremities and vice versa.  This increased transmitting power will result in better athletic performance and will make daily activities much more efficient.  Increasing core strength will ultimately lead to an increased amount of force you can provide to the prime movers maximizing their effectiveness and increasing their overall strength.  Increasing the strength of the prime movers will result in better power and improved production from our muscular system.

When starting with a new stabilization program make sure that you start off slow and progress forward as needed.  You want to feel comfortable and balanced in the exercise or movement before you incorporate resistance.  Increasing the resistance or stabilization challenge too fast will add no benefit in your training and will most likely lead to injury.  Adding this type of training into your existing program will add an element of fun and function that may be currently missing.