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Here is the archive for my August Chapel Hill News Article on Stabilization Training.

Stabilization Training for Athletes and Everyone!

David Hansey
NASM Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist
NASM Certified Sports Fitness Specialist
NASM Certified Personal Trainer

The concept of balance seems like a simple one. It is thought of as a static process where you are still like when you had to balance on one foot in grade school. While you may appear still, your body is actually performing a series of very complex movements in order to “keep you balanced”. By now, you may be asking yourself why is balance important? Balance is a critical component to an athlete as well as everyone else for a variety of reasons.
Balance prevents injury. Without good balance, we risk injury from everyday tasks such as walking, stair climbing, lifting our children, etc. The athlete not only risks injury from all these factors but the stresses of his sport as well. And an athlete with poor balance faces loss of power in his movements which affect performance.
So how do you improve your balance? You do it with Neuromuscular stabilization training which is basically balance training. Since your body does not exist on one plane of motion, in order to improve your balance you are not going to do it on one plane of motion. That means you have to perform moves that challenge you. There are some easy ways to add stability training to your current workout without adding a lot of moves. First, stand up! Yes, that is right. Get off the weight machines, stop sitting and laying on the bench and stand up!
This puts your body in its natural position for balance. Next, perform dynamic movements. So instead of just doing squats up and down, try doing walking lunges or side lunges. Again, putting your body in a position where it naturally balances the movement. There are many steps to continually make the movement more challenging with products like bosu balls and stability balls. In the end though, the concept is to take what your body would do naturally and enable it to train to be better at it.
So if you were a baseball player, you would be training for better balance when throwing, hitting, running and sliding to prevent injury and get more power and speed. Same goes for a mother of small children who should be training for lifting, shifting loads from one arm to the other, etc. And as we age, since our bodies lose balance naturally, it is a critical training component to prevent falls and fractures.
For more information on Sports Specific Training, call me at 404-514-1896 or visit my website at www.4fitbodies.com.

I look forward to hearing anyone’s comments on My monthly article in the greatest magazine in Douglasville – The Chapel Hill News.

Tags: Chapel Hill News, Douglasville, Fitness, Personal Training, Sports Fitness // Comments Off