Core & Functional Fitness: Balance Discs

People want to get the most bang for their buck, especially from a Personal Trainer.  Functional Fitness often gets overlooked for steady-state cardio or weight lifting.  However, functional fitness undoubtedly enhances physical performance, elevates metabolism, and increases energy levels.  Talking to a middle aged client about increasing speed and agility can be likened to teaching a cat how to bark.  Why would a non-competitive, middle aged, working adult want to increase speed and agility?  Know your audience.  People want to feel, move, and sleep better.  People want to have energy to chase the kids and carry fire wood.  Functional fitness addresses these issues.  

The balance disc is a great tool to create a functional fitness workout.  Many traditional exercises can be performed on the balance disc to add a core challenge and trigger stabilizer muscles.  Balance disc work forces clients to improve their proprioceptive reactions.  The body’s ability to sense position, analyze, and then react is the concept of proprioception (Houglum 2001).  Largely these reactions are instinctual.  Functional training improves the body’s ability to react instinctually and intentionally.  Incorporating the balance disc is a minor change to a standard workout with big results. 

We recommend movement on the balance disc begins at the base level of gaining body awareness on the disc.  These movements can be completed by kneeling or sitting on the disc.  As a client becomes more familiar with movement at this level, his core becomes better equipped to increase intensity by standing on the disc.  Below we have included a Balance Disc core sequence to incorporate into a training session as an introduction to the balance disc. 

In Good Health,

MV

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Houglum, P.A. 2001. Therapeutic Exercise for Athletic Injuries. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.