Completely Transform Your Fat Loss Workouts With Stability Ball Training!

Activate your core!

Do more intense fat loss workouts!

Have fun!

Ok, so the fun part may be accurate, and I'm fine with that.  But in terms of "core workouts" and "more intense workouts"….

April Fools: Stability Ball Training is Stupid

If you pair balance training like this

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with a great diet and a smart workout program, you can get really lean.

Or you can skip this completely, and just do a great diet and a smart workout program, and get just as lean, while spending less time at the gym.

It isn't bad.  It's just a waste of time.

And balance discs (you know the squishy things that the trainers at your gym makes everyone stand on).

And BOSU Balls (those are the half stability balls that all of the "cool kids" at the gym use).

I know, I know. 

You're going to say "But I tried them and they're really hard!"

It's Hard Because Your Body Hates You

Here's the deal, it's hard to do squats on a BOSU Ball because it's threatening to your nervous system.

Your body shuts off strength because it feels unstable and doesn't want you to hurt yourself.

So if you have access to 100% of your potential strength standing on the ground…

and you have access to 30% (percentage completely made up for the sake of illustration) of your potential strength standing on the BOSU…

You're getting a 70% crappier workout on the BOSU, even though it feels "hard".

Imagine Squatting With Weight

Actually, you shouldn't imagine, you should actually do it.  But I digress.

Lets say Alicia has been working out for a while, and she does her squats with 95 pounds.  She gets a great workout squatting 95 pounds.

Then, her trainer puts her on the BOSU.  She can barely squat at all on the BOSU, with no weight at all.  "Wow is this hard!" she says.

So she's gone from squatting 95 pounds to squatting with no weight at all.

Even though it feels hard, she's getting much much less of a workout.

But Wait, What About When She Gets Really Good?

Ok, so our girl Alicia trains on that BOSU Ball and gets really good. 

After a few months, she gets to the point where she can squat 45 pounds on the BOSU Ball.

Wow, that's cool!

Everyone at the gym stops at marvels at her BOSU Ball proficiency.

And she's still getting  only half as good a workout as she would have gotten with the original 95 pounds.

But There's Balance!  And Core!

Not really.

The balance = core thing is straight made up.

A study at Eastern Illinois University on BOSU training and core strength showed that you actually get less muscle contraction of your core on a BOSU ball then you do on the ground.

The research that brought us all of these stability balls was done for physical therapy, not for strength training.

The research that brought us "core training" is just being misused. 

To many trainers playing "telephone", and the original message got lost completely.

If you want the facts on that, you can find them here: http://bit.ly/8dvfG
Thanks to Jen Waak for that.

It Just Doesn't Do What You Think It Does

The short version is – "stability" training does nothing for your "core".

And the balance aspect just doesn't translate. 

Getting better at the stability ball only makes you better at the stability ball.

It doesn't translate at all to being on anything else.

It's a waste of time.

What About Single Leg Squats?

The thing about single leg squats is that you actually spend some time on one leg, on the ground.

Like every time you walk, you are on one leg, and then the other.  On the ground.

And in any sport, you spend time, on the ground, with most of your weight on one leg.

So single leg training makes sense because it's on the ground.

We do single leg training for three reasons:

1.) To even out leg strength

2.) because it's portable

3.) Because it puts less stress on the spine

But we don't do it because it's "core training".  We don't do it because it's "balance training".

What You Should Do

It really depends on what you have access to.

If you have access to a gym, you should do variations of single leg squats and single leg deadlifts, and you should do barbell squats and deadlifts.

If you work out at home, single leg squats and single leg deadlifts may be your only option for getting a really solid lower body workout, and that works out too.

The Game We're Playing is Fat Loss

And losing fat with the least amount of work possible. 

Can you do BOSU training for fun?  Sure you can!

Is it a great use of time in a fat loss workout?  No!

At the 24 Hour Fitness I used to train at, there were some really hot girls who did BOSU Ball training.  Some days they would do Barbell Squats with their bodyweight, other days they'd rep out on BOSU Ball squats.  And the food they ate was pretty rockstar.

Did BOSU Ball training hurt their results?  No.  But they could have dropped their BOSU day, kept the great eating and the barbell training day, and still had the same results. 

Or they could have switched repping out on the BOSU for repping out with their feet on on the floor, and gotten better results.  Just think – if they were doing about 10-30 bodyweight squats per set on the BOSU Ball, and they could do 20-100 bodyweight squats per set on the floor, the floor produces better results.

I'm trying to save you some time here, by hacking away at that which isn't essential to your fat loss results.

Get better fat loss results, faster.

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The phone coaching program has been going really, really well.  I'm totally stoked, my clients are totally stoked, and I'm opening up a few more slots for phone coaching clients:

1.) Four 30 minute phone coaching sessions per month $200

2.) Eight 30 minute phone coaching sessions per month $300

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By Josh Hillis

RKC2 Kettlebell Instructor, CPT, PES,
Z-Movement Reeducation Specialist, Integrative Movement Specialist

Josh is the author of the ever-popular fat loss e-book: The Stubborn Seven Pounds

"I've seen more results in 6 weeks training with Josh than I saw in the previous two years working out on my own" -Stephanie Weis