DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BALANCE AND STABILITY?

Do you have great balance?

Poor balance?

Do you have great stability?

Poor stability?

Huh?

What's the difference you ask?

Well balance and stability are not the same thing and here's why.

- Stability is the ability to resist movement coming towards and into the body - think standing on 1 leg and someone giving a light push from the side.

- Balance is the ability to control your equilibrium or maintain your center of gravity/base of support within a given sensory environment.

- Stability is a state and balanced is a proficiency

- Static and dynamic balance don't correlate to well so you'll need to all the way along the static-dynamic continuum for transfer to whatever you require stability and.or balance for specifically

- Balance is a pretty easy adaptation to acquire as it uses no energy to train train it so you can do so daily without it affecting anything else in your life

- It's all better to train balance with more frequency but in smaller dosages so say 3 - 5mins per day vs 45mins 1/week

- Balance is also task specific so if you train to hold the Tree Yoga pose then that's what you'll become good at, it doesn't mean you should head to the Grand Canyon and tightrope walk across it without a net.

- Standing on unstable surfaces is a means of modifying stability in a given situation (task specific stability), not training actual balance

Some stability exercises to start with include planks and single leg stands.

Some balance exercises to start with include single leg romanian deadlifts and single leg ball (any ball really) throws catches

You can see in that last video as the ball switches from front on to side on, it is far more challenging so make sure you work up slowly.

Need some help with your balance and stability? Contact me today through FB.

QUALITY TRAINING MATTERS (AND HOW I CAN HELP YOU)

Today I want to direct you to a study US strength and conditioning coach Eric Cressey wrote about about a year ago.

Let's set the scene here:

- 52 firefighters

- Split into 3 groups being movement based program (program + coaching), conventional fitness (program only and zero coaching) and control (no program or coaching)

- Pre and post the 12 week program they were tested on the usual things but they also were also tested on 5 whole body tasks not actually trained over the duration of the 12 week program

- Within these 5 tasks they looked at spine and knee motion to gauge movement quality under various conditions of slow and fast speed of movement

- The fitness and movement groups showed significant improvements in all aspects of fitness but only the movement group exhibited improvements in spine and frontal knee motion control when performing each of the 5 transfer tasks

What this shows is that QUALITY TRAINING MATTERS and how do you accomplish this?

With specific coaching.

Quality personal training outcomes are about so much more then just a program (HIIT) or even a good training environment (loud doof, doof group training) - it's also about hammering home loads of consistent high quality reps to markedly improve your CHANCES of positive movement quality.

Later this week I'll be revealing a brand new promotion never before offered by TRF where you'll have the chance to get in the ground floor so keep your eyes peeled for that bad boy!

You can read the full study here.

FALL ASLEEP IN 2 MINUTES

I've posted about sleep many times before but a lot of us still have an aversion to it and I don't know why.

If you're tired then the best remedy is sleep.

If your in pain then the best remedy is sleep.

If you're not recovering from your training then the best remedy is sleep.

It's staring us right in the face but we're far quicker to opt for Netflix late into the night, sleeping pills and costly supplements to fix our issues.

Waste.

Of.

Time.

Your body AND mind recovers when you sleep and most importantly, learning takes place when you sleep.

If you have a huge presentation in the morning and you need to memorise it then staying up til 2am try to remember it word for it won't work - you won't sleep long or good enough for the days learning to become instilled in the brain.

It's too late and you're doing it all wrong anyway.

This blog looks at a sleeping ritual designed for soldiers to be able to sleep under any conditions and it worked for 96% of those who tried it for 6 weeks but nothing much will happen until week 2 or later so you need to be consistent and you need to be patient.

STEP 1 - Sit on the edge of your bed in the dark

STEP 2 - Tighten up your facial muscles then slowly let them loosen/relax and let your tongue fall any whiach way it wants to in your mouth

STEP 3 - Once your face is truly relaxed then let gravity pull your shoulders naturally towards the ground and let your arms dangle 1 side at a time.

STEP 4 - While doing all of this breathe in and out letting your chest relax more and more each breathe and then let gravity relax your thighs and lower legs.

STEP 5 - Once your body is totally relaxed then trey to clear your mind for 10secs and if something pops up then simply let it pass and keep your body loose/limp and after a few seconds your mind should be clearer.

STEP 6 - Now picture 1 of 2 scenarios.

Scenario 1 is of you lying in a canoe in a calm lake with clear blue skies above you.

Scenario 2 is you in a velvet hammock gently swaying in a pitch black room

If your not a great visualiser (try it first though don't assume!) then chant "don't think, don' t think, don't think" x 10secs and at this point it should take about 2 minutes to go to sleep.

You can read the full article here.

Let me know how you go!