I was speaking with a young hockey player the other day who was so excited to tell me about the ‘cool’ off-ice training program he went to over the Christmas break. He was so pumped because some of the athletes were standing on stability balls. Knowing that I work with lots of hockey players he asked if I had my athletes stand on the stability ball. When I said no, his face fell – like “What kind of trainer ARE you anyway?!”
I have never had my athletes stand on the stability ball – I did use a photo of me standing on the ball for a promo shot a few years ago, but I have since stopped. Here is why:
1. standing on the ball is really not that difficult. It is much harder to balance an Extreme Balance board.
2. the hard thing about standing on the stability ball is falling OFF! See video below.
This is why no hockey players will be standing on stability balls at Revolution Conditioning and why you should not either.
Yeah, not sure how this translates onto the ice. Great question about the BOSU – it can be a good tool for sure, but it really depends on knowing what you are trying to train. I think I wrote an article about this a while back, I will try to track it down and post it. Thanks so much for the comments!
Cheers,
maria
Great post Maria! I’ve seen some hockey players take terrible falls off stability balls, and am not sure how functional standing on a 2 feet tall round object is for athletes that stand on 1/2 inch wide skate blades on a solid surface.
Keep up the great work!
LOL, OUCH! Poor guy, what about the half ball I see a lot of Canucks using. It doesn’t roll out from under you.