Many new athletes who sign up for a gym membership are often not only unconditioned but also inexperienced. Additionally, many people suffer from low back pain, knee injuries, and poor posture. These are important issues that really need to be addressed.
Many training programs and gym policies are often not aimed at addressing these deficiencies before allowing new unconditioned clients to do strength training. Unconditioned includes muscle imbalances, poor flexibility, and lack of core stability and joint stability.
Fortunately, it seems increasingly that more and more gyms, as well as athletes themselves, are recognizing the importance of good balance and stability. Ensuring a strong and well-trained core is becoming increasingly important. All strength comes from the core, which is why it is so important for it to be well-trained before heavy strength exercises are done. This really plays a crucial role in injury prevention.
Core stability training
Proprioception (position sense) is the ability of an organism to perceive the position of its own body and body parts. It is therefore important to train in a proprioceptively enriched environment. You do this by creating an unstable (but controllable) environment. This requires a lot of internal balance and stabilization mechanisms of the human body.
Stabilization training aims to:
- Improve muscle condition
- Increase joint stability
- Enhance flexibility
- Teach better posture
- Improve communication between muscles and nerves
Core stability training aids
There are several popular aids that help with stability training.
It is important to train in an unstable environment and using not too heavy weights with many repetitions.
Examples of objects that create an unstable environment are:
- Swiss ball
- Bosu ball
- Balance disk
- Half foam roller
- Balance beam (wooden plank)
- Foam pad
Execution of core training
The idea is to start with the easiest exercise. For example, you can already do a balance exercise by lifting one leg off the ground while standing, which requires effort to maintain balance. You will notice that after practicing a few times, this is no longer a major challenge. Then you can choose to close your eyes, which significantly increases the difficulty of the exercise. Much of our positioning information is received through sight, and closing our eyes eliminates this. After this, you could choose, for example, to stand on a half foam roller, which makes the exercise more challenging (unstable) again.
A softly inflated balance beam is one of the most challenging exercises for stability and balance. For exercises on a Bosu ball or Swiss ball, weights can also be used. It is important, however, not to use too heavy weights because these exercises are not intended for that purpose. If you want to do a heavy chest exercise, use the Bench Press instead of a Swiss ball Chest Press with dumbbells. So you don’t want to increase the weight but make it more challenging by creating a more unstable environment.
How often should you do core stability training
It is important for beginner athletes to ensure they have good balance and stability. Once you have this, it’s a matter of keeping up with the exercises. Many people who have been doing strength training for years may think that this type of training is not important for them. That is certainly not the case, try stepping onto a Bosu ball once and you’ll immediately understand what balance training means. Working on your balance two or three times a week for 5-10 minutes works wonders.
The progressions people make are very fast, and that is what ultimately makes this form of training so rewarding. One demographic for whom balance and stability training may be even more important is seniors. Walking on uneven roads, climbing stairs, and making a turn on one leg are movement activities that become increasingly difficult. Through training in unstable environments, they prepare themselves for unforeseen situations and become better at overcoming these obstacles.
