Strength Sensei’s Blog : Balance Training – Yes or No ?

 

  Charles Poliquin

In adults, balance can be regained, but not taught.

If you don’t already have balance skills by age 12, you’re not going to improve dramatically as an adult. It’s a waste of time.

Balance training is often sold as « core training ». Another piece of hogwash sold by trainers who don’t have the skills to get their clients leaner or stronger. I see it all the time in my travels, some trainer with the physique of the accountant of a small town circus, having some menopausal female doing « core exercises » on balance disks. The product : she is throwing spastic gang signs, like she is fighting off imaginary vampire bats during a mescaline trip. Precious and gracious.

Now, if you’ve lost those skills over the years, then balance training can help you get back to where you once were. This might help prevent falling injuries in the elderly.

Before the age of 12, balance training is really good, and needed. Kids need to play on unstable surfaces. Imagine a kid at a park jumping from rock to rock. Each rock has a different shape, so the child has to balance on it. Walking on narrow surfaces like a high beam in gymnastics can also really train balance.

One motor learning expert from Canada goes as far as to say that balance must be trained before the age of four. Some will even argue that you should start with toddlers, tapping them gently on each side as they’re walking so they have to catch themselves.

That’s extreme, but when it comes to developing balance, the younger you do it, the better the outcome. Skiers have some of the best balance and spatial-awareness skills you’ll see, and most Olympian skiiers got on the slopes at age two.

As a side note, swimmers are just the opposite. They can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. They spend so much time in the water that their proprioception is poor. Ever see a bunch of swimmers playing soccer to warm up? Bambi on ice is more graceful.

So, balance training is trendy, but pretty worthless for adults.

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