There are ten recognized general domains of fitness- cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. Here at Elysium we strive to create a program that builds each aspect equal to the others, creating a very well rounded level of fitness. I recognize that we are not going to make you the fastest person, the strongest person or the most flexible person. We will how ever make you pretty fast, strong, flexible, powerful etc... While Leon and I are not the best programmers on the planet, I am very confident in saying we are more then competent and could defend and explain our methods both in an intelligent discussion and on a proving ground such as an affiliate challenge.

In this post I am going to touch on how we train balance and how it will help you in everyday life and how more "mainstream fitness" people train balance. Balance is an essential component to fitness. You may not realize it but we do a ton of balance training on a daily basis here at Elysium. Take a look at most if not all the barbell lifts we perform. Placing an external load (of significant weight) and asking you to move quickly across a great range of motion ie... clean, snatch, thruster etc... is going to create a solid midsection and awareness from the mid-line out to your extremities. The use of the gymnastic rings and the different gymnastic drills are also going to develop great amounts of balance and coordination. The even greater part about using these types of methods for balance training is that it will actually help you in real life! If somebody or something tries to move you around, you are going to be a solid rock becuase your body is use to dealing with controlling external pressures and loads. Now are you ever going to me a tight rope walker form doing CrossFit? No. You would have to take up slacklining to learn that or you would need to specialize in that area.

Now lets take a look at how many mainstream fitness people approach balance training!

If you have ever been into any "globo gym" you probably have seen your share of balance balls and BOSU trainers. These devices are industry favorites for "balance training." Granted, used for the right person and the right circumstance these can be useful, say for certain rehab programs. However, many fitness people think that the crazier and more difficult you can get on these things the better! Incorporating these tools into the fitness program will skew it so for into the balance section that it can easily turn into learning tricks. Now, I have nothing against learning fun little "tricks"... but when you can that a fitness program, now I have a problem. If you aren't sure what exactly I am talking about, check out the video below!

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While there are some things on there that are some what impressive, I would be willing to bet that most of our ladies could squat and deadlift more then that guy. I don't care how many partial range of motion squats you can do on a swiss ball, that isn't going to help you be strong and useful if I need to move my coach up some stairs. Wait a second coach, what about doing dumbbell exercises while standing on the ball? That surely must mean he is strong? No! I don't think those weights were a hair over 10lbs, so he definitely is not strong. Your body will always so focused on controlling the balance that you won't be able to move any significant weight. I would by no means call the trainer in the video "fit" to any special degree but I would say he has crazy balance. How helpful is crazy balance? Can you remember the last time you had to do anything that looked even remotely close to the stuff he was doing in the video? Probably not.

Check out the following video of another trainer showing of his balance training.

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I am sorry, but I am calling total non-sense on that. I personally have no idea how any of that will help with absolutely anything in real life? I am going to take this moment and let you know that one of the reasons this stuff bothers me so much is becuase I use to do it and tried to get my clients to do this stuff and I actually thought this was where it was at. Looking back it really is embarrassing and how I ever thought this stuff was "functional" or useful is beyond me.  Now days if you want some great balance, practice your overhead squats, Oh lunges, pistols, handstands and ring drills. Those are the kind of moves that will create balance that can actually help you in the real world.

One thing that I will say that these trainers have added to the world that makes it a better place is this. Swiss ball fail videos are awesome! Also watching these fails happen in person are also great. I will never forget playing catch with Trainer Steve at a globo gym. This game of catch involved each of us standing on top of a swiss ball and throwing a 8lb med-ball at each other! A recipe for a good time right!  Despite what you may think, there was no adult beverages involved. I don't even think it was on a pass to him, but he was just trying to get up on the ball. Upon getting both feet on there his feet immediately slipped out and he fell straight on his back. With much more of a bruised ego than anything, we called it a day on that "exercise."

On that note I will leave you some great balance training fail videos!

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Coach Paul

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leon  - Love the fails!   |Administrator |2010-07-21 10:56:38 Love seeing monkeys hurt themselves... natural selection. I would say I feel sorry for the people paying for that kind of "training", but I just can't. As they say, a fool and his money are soon parted... Reply | Quote

tg  - seems pretty useful to me...   |99.30.180.xxx |2010-07-21 08:45:17 Especially the swiss ball fails. I broke my wrist when I was a kid doing those moves only from barstool to barstool. It was a useful lesson on what I never needed to do again. Reply | Quote

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