For the past two columns I have written, I began the first two articles in a series of seven principles.

To recap, the first concept was movement preparation. This should replace the old school pre-work out stretch with an active movement routine.

The second concept is “pre-habilitation” where you must be proactive in your exercise to prevent an injury to avoid the need for rehabilitation.

For this issue, I want to expand on that principle with balance.  The physioball, also called a Swiss ball, is the simplest piece of equipment you can work out on.
The physioball is intended to challenge your normal range of motion.  In the process, it develops balance, coordination and stabilizing strength.

In kinesiology, this is called “proprioceptive” where joints, muscles and tendons react simultaneously in order to keep your balance.

Try to do any work out sitting, feet on, hands on, back on or legs on the ball.
The unstable surface of the ball forces unused muscles to become recruited when normally they are never worked on at all, like your transverse abdominals.

A simple example of this is a push-up. It takes strength, but if your hands or feet are on the ball, muscles never used are activated to develop coordination, balance and agility.
In sports performance training, when an athlete is knocked of balance, the body’s awareness of where it is in space is improved with a heightened sense of proprioception.

The athlete can fall with balance and land without tearing a knee or turning an ankle.
Now I will apply this to a life value.  Like the physioball, your life is unpredictable, uneven and always changing.

No one knows what life will bring any more than you know what to expect from the physioball and where it will roll.

To prepare for lives unbalanced challenges, understand who your true self is and what it is that serves as your moral foundation.

Just as our pillar of strength in our hips, core and shoulders enable balance and stability with our bodies, the same applies with our core life values.

It could be your faith and God, family, passions, friends, your pet – you get the idea.
If these cornerstones give you stability, truly embrace them to have the ability to deal with life’s challenges as they arise.

When working on an unstable surface, your body is inherently required to tap into muscles rarely used.

Using a physioball will develop pillar strength by challenging your hips, core and shoulders.  Therefore, that challenge will toughen up your proprioceptive senses.
As always, when you work out, if there are pains, it builds character.