What are the weird looking toys you see in the gyms these days? I know you have seen these funny looking things that look like a cut-in-half stability ball called a BOSU. There are also the small circular “pillow discs” that are filled with air. Don’t forget about the other items like balance wedges, wobble boards, and rocker boards. They look interesting enough, sometimes even fun, but what’s the point of all these devices? Are they right for you? Some people look at me like I have 4 heads when I tell them to stand on one of these “toys.” And after all, what’s the point?

These “toys” are actually tools to help people improve their balance. Balance is important for people of all ages, not just “older people.” The ability of our body to interpret, use and adjust to information about our position in space is vital to maintaining balance. The system of feedback and your ability to adjust is known as proprioception. We gather information through environmental cues, the bottoms of our feet, the inner ears relationship to gravity, and through our eyes. Our body then senses which muscles are needed to be activated or deactivated to maintain the position we are seeking (think – not falling).You use this ability every time you stand up from a chair, walk down the street, ride a bike, ski, stand on your tiptoes to reach something overhead and while strength training at the gym or performing most yoga poses. When your body isn’t used to deciphering this information, which at times can be complex, you lose your balance. And as the old saying goes “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” However, with training you can regain your balance and master what had previously been impossible tasks.

With proper balance training you will improve your coordination, posture and athletic skills. Proper balance will also help you avoid injury by reducing or preventing injuries due to falls as you age.

Balance training is a progression and the first step is determining how good your current balance is. Start by standing on one foot on a flat, hard surface.DO NOT CLOSE YOUR EYES. By closing your eyes you would be cutting off one of the main information systems for your bodies proprioception. If you can do this for at least fifteen seconds on each leg move on to the next step.

Now you get to start playing with the toys at the gym. Get a BOSU, and a friend, and try standing on it with 2 feet.The friend can help you get on and off the BOSU until you become more comfortable doing it yourself. Remember that the BOSU surface will be moving and likewise your ankles and feet, along with muscles you likely have no conscious control over,will be recruited to help you stand upright on it.

If you can stand comfortably on the BOSU at this point you can start integrating the use of the BOSU into your other exercises.  Weight training while standing on the BOSU: Shoulder presses, Bicep curls, overhead triceps extensions to name a few, can all be performed while standing on the BOSU. When you start, you should reduce the weight you are using for the exercises by about 10%-20%.

Even just adding one or two of these types of exercises can improve your overall balance. As you get stronger and gain better balance you may want to try doing squats on the BOSU, with the flat side up! Hope you brought that friend with you again. Really advanced? Let’s try a squat with a shoulder press, or a 1 leg squat on the BOSU.

You will need a physioball (aka stability ball). This exercise will help increase your mobility, stability and strength from your shoulders to your hips.

Lie supine on the ball with your shoulder blades on the ball and keep your hips high in a good bridge position. Feet are wider than shoulder width to help stabilize you. Extend your hands over your chest, hands together or holding a weight.

While keeping your hips high, rotate your shoulders to the right until they are perpendicular to the ground while keeping your hips horizontal. Keep your hips flat by firing the glute on the side you are turning towards.

Rotate back to the starting position and rotate to the other side. Do all movements in a controlled manner.

You should feel stretching in your midsection, and activation of your muscles in the hips and the sides of your waist (oblique muscles).

People often ask me how much running (or other form of cardio) they should do. While we know that the minimum recommendation is 30 minutes 5 days per week at a moderate intensity, is that really the answer for you? What if the most cardio you have done is when you have to park at the far end of the parking lot when the malls are packed at the holidays? Is 30 minutes realistic? What I tell people is to start by doing what they can.

Let’s start with duration.  If you can walk for 6-8 minutes before you run out of steam then do that! If you can jog/run/bike for 20 minutes, great! Let’s find out where you are and we can go from there. So let’s say you can jog/run for 12 minutes today. Awesome! I suggest that you take a break tomorrow and not run. The following day I want you to shoot for an increase of only about 10% in duration, so a minimum of 12 minutes and a maximum of 13 minutes. What if you feel great and want to go for 15? You could do that and you might feel great. But how will you feel the next day after doing 15 minutes? I don’t know and neither do you and the intent is to make sure that the next day you feel good and the day after you are ready for your next run.  So here is a chart of what your run times would look like by following my 10% rule if you started out running only 12 minutes.

I know some of you are going to say that is slow progress but it really isn’t. If you have gone from doing no cardio to 50 minutes in your first week that is a HUGE increase. And remember, this is just a guideline. It may need to be adjusted for you. That is one of the advantages of working with a personal trainer – making adjustments as needed. We want you to progress at a pace that will help prevent injuries and keep you coming back for more. When you start running you are training more than your heart, you are training your feet, ankles, knees, hips, core, and shoulders! So let’s not rush it. You are in it for the long haul aren’t you?

So let’s address intensity. The earlier recommendation was for “moderate intensity.” So what is moderate intensity? If I came up to you while you were running and asked you how your run was going, a moderate intensity performance would allow you to say something like “I’m doing okay. Almost done.” If you can only spit out a single word or two (‘okay’  or ‘ it’s going’), you probably need to slow it down a bit. On the other hand if you start telling me about how you spilled your coffee on the way to work and you ended up getting chewed out by your boss for being late you probably have to crank up the intensity a notch or two.

But the first thing I work on with clients is duration and then we address intensity. So let’s get you running or biking or using that elliptical for 30 minutes, 5 times per week and then we can work on varying the intensity of your workout.