Sometimes, that workout you couldn’t get enough of – gets to be enough. Eventually, we all hit a plateau. And, once in a while life changes, and changes our fitness with it. Maximizing your fitness potential is a moving target. To hit a moving target, you have to stay in motion.
A fitness balance board is a fun tool that can help you improve your strength, agility, coordination, posture, and spatial awareness. The interesting part is that a balance board does all of this simultaneously. It’s small, portable, and fairly inexpensive. They can improve fitness at all levels, from kids to professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts. Haven’t tried one yet? Let’s talk about why that needs to change.
Why is Balance Important?
Balance is maintaining your center of gravity while you stand and move about the world. Proper balance helps prevent injuries and corrects unsafe movements. It’s the reason you don’t automatically tip over when you lean to one side or bend down. Balance is one of the foundational blocks of having an active lifestyle and toned body. It can be easy to forget how important it is to exercise this function of our bodies to keep them in tip-top shape. To maximize your fitness, the first step is to ensure your foundation is strong.
A Fitness Balance Board Is For Your Whole Self
Standing on a well-designed fitness balance board should be challenging. It will force you to stay in continuous motion and focus on staying upright. Balancing on an unstable surface engages the whole body and activates several areas of the brain. Balance boards also offer a way to increase the difficulty of any traditional exercise. Planks getting too easy? Hard time focusing in the afternoon? Has your fitness progress slowed? Looking to be active with the kids? Bored? A balance board provides an answer for all of these things and more.
The Balance Brain Connection
Let’s start at the top, shall we? These boards don’t just work our muscles; they strengthen our brain function as well! A research study done by Dr. Ann-Kathrin Rogge from Hamburg University shows that balance training improves memory and spatial cognition. The act of syncing our neural networks to maintain balance in motion requires intense concentration. Doing this over and over again improves the way your mind responds to moments of imbalance. With time, regular users of fitness balance boards can see big changes in their reaction time and ability to focus.
Balance training is also great at engaging your proprioception sense, the sense that allows you to know where your body is in space with your eyes closed. An article from Northwestern University explains that your brain receives signals from all your muscle spindles, along with other sensory receptors in your tendons and joints. It then constructs an overall sense of the position and motion of your body.
To maximize your fitness and focus at the same time, consider taking your fitness balance board to the office. Many studies show that physical movement, or fidgeting while performing mental tasks greatly improves focus and concentration. It also burns an average of 100 calories an hour. Simply hop on a balance board at your standing desk to start taking advantage of this life hack.
Maximizing Your 6-Pack
Core muscles are responsible for moving, supporting, and stabilizing the spine. The six-pack is a nice bonus, though! Our abdominal muscles are made up of several muscles that overlap each other. They are extended from the base of our neck all the way to our legs. These muscles play a big role in quality of life.
Example of Core Muscles:
- Internal & External Obliques – These muscles run from your ribs to your pelvis.
- Rectus Abdominis – The “ab” muscles in your stomach that show when defined.
- Erector & Multifidus Spinae – These muscles run from the head down to the pelvis.
- Transverse Abdominis – These muscles are on each side of the naval.
- Diaphragm – Attached to the sternum, rib cage, and spine.
- Pelvic Floor – Found between the tailbone and pubic bone.
- Latissimus Dorsi – The largest muscle in the body. Triangular in shape, it stretches across the middle and down to the lower back.
- Trapezius – One on either side, attached at the base of the neck and down the spine, forming a trapezoid shape up to the shoulders.
- Glutes – The tushy.
Fitness balance boards build core strength quickly & efficiently. You will feel these muscles (and more!) engage the moment you step on a board. Once you’re comfortable, you can use fitness balance boards like the Whirly Board to increase the intensity and difficulty of your workout. Core muscles (especially those around the belly) are notoriously hard to train. One of the most effective ways to conquer an abdominal plateau is to add balance training to your rotation.
Using All The Muscles
Burn more calories in less time – that’s the name of the game. Fitness balance boards offer a smart way to maximize your fitness potential, regardless of your workout. Whether your goal is muscle gain, body toning, increasing stamina, losing weight, or muscle/joint recovery, a balance board can help you maximize your fitness potential.
- Strength Training: You can intensify exercises such as squats, planks, push-ups, bridges, arm curls, and more using a balance board. Doing so engages small and large muscle groups to work together in ways they typically don’t.
- Aerobic Training: Make those classic cardio moves feel brand new again. High knees, mountain climbers, and lunges. Try using a rocker-style board to stay in motion while performing aerobic arm exercises. You’ll be sure to notice “new” muscles the next morning.
- Sports Training: Skateboarding moves you learned years ago can become challenging again. Agility training can be intense and fun at the same time. Speed and reaction time increase due to improved focus and more agile muscles… if you spend time practicing on a fitness balance board, that is.
- Recovery/Rehab: Balance boards have a long history of helping with physical therapy. Engaging multiple muscles and neuropathways simultaneously makes them ideal tools to help heal from ankle sprains, back issues, and hip and knee injuries or surgery.
Fitness Balance Boards Maximize Fitness for Everyone
Needless to say, fitness balance boards can help anyone achieve an overall toned, fit, and healthy body. They’re also incredibly fun and engaging for all ages. Whether you are a gymnast on the beam, a hockey player with a sprained ankle, or a health-conscious parent setting their family up for a happy life, balance boards will give you a leg up.
Strengthening & Rehabilitating Joints
Every athlete is aware of the risk factors like ankle sprains, that are involved when they participate in sports. To continue getting better, it’s best to know how to prevent injuries and recover from them effectively. Some doctors claim that weakness or lack of sufficient coordination in core musculature can lead to less efficient movements, compensatory movement patterns, strain, overuse, and injury.
Using a fitness balance board to improve and strengthen muscles before running, for example, can result in fewer ankle and knee injuries. It also leads to faster recovery times when injuries do occur. Some literature supports using neuromuscular training to prevent ACL injuries in athletes. This can also be extremely beneficial to wakeboarders who are prone to these types of knee injuries. A physical therapist can be expensive, but injury prevention with a wobbleboard brings affordable options to athletes wanting to get ahead of it.
Increase Your Strength
Balance board workouts increase overall strength. This is an excellent option for weight-lifters looking to pump more iron. It adds intensity to your workouts and engages your stabilizer muscles. Strengthening the stabilizer and core muscles helps prevent lifting injuries. Training stabilizer muscles can make or break lifts like bench presses, squats, and more. By adding fitness balance board training, you can improve your form and thereby increase your lifts.
Maximize Your Family’s Fitness
Regular exercise is crucial for so many reasons. Instilling this in our children at a young age can set them up for lifetime success. Exercise increases serotonin and endorphins, which lift spirits and make us feel connected. Making exercise look fun to a 7-year-old can be the hard part. Enter the fitness balance board!
A balance board is a fun workout that you can do with your whole family. Surveys state that if you enjoy your exercise, you are more likely to stick with it. Consider all of the benefits of a balance board. Playing a game with your family that will ultimately help them live a happier, healthier, more balanced life is priceless.
The best thing about fitness balance boards is that you can take them anywhere. To the backyard, on the beach, at the gym, in the park! Most boards are compact enough to throw a few in the back of the car, pack in the kids – and take off for adventure!
Getting The Littles On a Fitness Balance Board
To help the kids get comfortable on a balance board, start slow. They should wear helmets and pads (just like skateboarding or biking). Put the board on a flat surface, as boards on uneven ground can lead to injuries.
- Starting Position: Stand upright on your board, knees bent slightly with feet hip distance apart.
- A rocker board only goes side-to-side or front-to-back, making it a good option for the youngest of beginners. Wobble-type boards allow you to practice moving in a three-dimensional space. Try rocking the board from side to side as well as front to back.
- Once these movements have become second nature, try to balance on one leg or rock in the opposite direction.
- You can introduce more difficult techniques and tricks as your child becomes more comfortable and confident.
Maximizing Performance Potential
A quality fitness balance board can improve performance for all athletes. Skaters, surfers, snowboarders, wakeboarders, footballers, boxers, everyone! The Whirly Board is the perfect choice for board sports training, in particular. Its 360-degree spin design allows for more movement than ever before. This keeps even the best athletes entertained and trained all year long, rain or shine.
Skateboarding
- Whirly Board is an actual skateboard deck, making it optimal for skaters.
- Practice tricks like Kickflips, Quick Reverts, Shuvits, and Spins.
- Train everyday. Rain or shine.
Surfing
- Master board control.
- Learn weight distribution for advanced moves like the Carve 360.
- Build ankle and leg strength to perform basics such as the Bottom Turn.
- Learn the mechanics to start spin moves.
Snowboarding
- Whirly Board has 3 balance points for 360 Spins.
- Enhance board control.
- Improve spatial awareness.
- Boost agility.
Wakeboarding
- Learn proper mechanics to start spins.
- Improve Quick Reverts and 180 Spins.
- Add rotations to Butter Slides or Rail Slides.
- Improve balance.
- Build leg strength and improve carving.
Maximize Your Fitness Potential
Why should you use a fitness balance board? Balance training burns calories, builds strength, improves balance and posture, boosts agility, connects us with others, and so much more. Because you can reap health benefits with simple fitness balance board exercises, get in shape, and have fun.
If you truly want to maximize your fitness potential, what are you waiting for…Give it a whirl! Check out our Original Whirly Boards, designed with fitness and sports agility in mind.