Once Upon A Time... Blog Post by Paul Dyck

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time I had a client who's goal was to stand and balance on an exercise ball with one leg.

I asked him why he wanted to do that and discussed the risk vs. benefit relation to doing this. His answer was "I've never seen anyone do it before and I want to be the first". He also told me that I was a bad business person and that if someone wanted to pay me to help them reach a goal then I should do it no matter what that goal was.

Interestingly enough I accepted the offer and we worked on single leg balance work on the ball (A lot). We didn't practise on the Bosu, on a wobble board, on a Bongo board, or a smaller ball. The goal was to stand on a large Swiss ball on one foot so we trained on the Swiss ball.

We used a pull up bar and dip bars for balance right off the bat. We used the other foot with just the toes for support and when Dre got good enough we had him standing on one leg and I would throw bean bags at I mean to him along with escrima sticks and anything else I could find laying around. His focus was on the stuff being thrown at him and not the balance work which became second nature on both legs.

Once again the risk for this was very high and I don't recommend that people try this but Dre accomplished his goal and was even able to switch from one leg to the other while standing on the ball like in the video.

The most interesting thing I leaned from this was that when Dre was coming to my sport conditioning classes we finished up class and were doing a standing quad stretch. Dre was all over the place and couldn't balance at all. He had spent so much time working on the ball and learning the physical corrections required that there was no carry over to singe leg work on any other stable or unstable surface. You would think that standing on one leg on solid ground would be easy if you can stand on a giant ball on one leg. Right?

My point of this article was to show you that not everything carries over so if you have a coach or trainer getting you to squat standing on a ball, play hockey while balancing on a bongo board, or jumping on and off a Bosu, ask why you're doing it and how will it help you to become a better athlete.

If you plan on playing hockey on a Bongo board then practise on the Bongo board...

Train smart my friends....

Paul