Elite athletes, especially those involved in extreme sports, always seek out new to push the envelope during their core and balance training sessions. Some coaches add challenge to balance board workouts by having their athletes work with multiple boards simultaneously. While this type of exercise adds variety and takes your athleticism to the next level, it is only suitable for people with advanced balance skills.
Partner Workouts
Partner exercises are a key component in sports conditioning classes. They teach you how to anticipate your teammate's or opponent's moves and enhance athletic readiness and agility. Sport conditioning workshops held at the annual International Dance Exercise Association convention usually feature a partner balance board session. Partners face each other on the balance boards and toss a weighted medicine ball back and forth. Once they have established their balance, they advance the exercise by tossing the ball in different directions.
Ski-Specific Training
When you hear a skier talk about her "good side" and her "bad side," she is referring to her turn proficiency in each direction. Sequential, as opposed to simultaneous, edge engagement is often the culprit. When you tip your skis onto their little toe edges, they should both move at the same time. Skiers who edge sequentially have one board that lags a few seconds behind the other. This destroys the turn's fluidity. While traditional balance board training benefits all winter sport athletes, its movements bear closer similarity to snowboarding than skiing. Using two balance boards simulates the two-plank experience. Stand in front of the mirror, place the boards on the floor and practice shifting your weight from side to side. Try to synchronize the boards so that they initiate the movement at the same time.
Double Wobble Board
A wobble board is a round version of the balance board. The double wobble board features a 14-inch long board, with a wobble board attached to each end. This balance-training device facilitates exercises such as a plank or pushup, with one hand on each wobble board, or a supine bridge, with one foot on each board. The upper body exercises promote scapula stability and alignment, and the lower body exercises challenge your knee and foot alignment.
Linked Balance Boards
A team of undergraduate engineering students at Rice University developed a balance diagnostic game for children. They linked five motion-control video game console balance boards together and placed them between two handrails with feedback devices. The subjects, children with cerebral palsy and other disorders, moved from board to board as they engaged in a video game. The feedback devices in the handrails let the therapist know how much the patient needed to rely upon them. While the Rice University students created this a physical therapy device, their invention opens up multiple possibilities for the balance board. As of June 2011, the software is only usable with one board at a time, but a multiple-board device may be developed in the future.
