Transcript Chapter 10 - Fitness Mentors

Chapter 10
Balance-Training Concepts
Objectives
• After this presentation, the participant will
be able to:
– Define balance and describe its role in
performance and injury risk.
– Discuss the importance of balance training.
– Design a progressive balance-training
program for clients in any level of training.
– Perform, describe, and instruct various
balance-training exercises.
Concepts in Balance
• The Importance of Balance
– Maintaining balance is a key to all functional
movements.
– Often thought of as a static process.
• Functional balance is static and dynamic
– The ability to reduce force at the right joint, at
the right time, and in the right plane of motion
requires optimum levels of functional dynamic
balance and neuromuscular efficiency.
Balance Mechanism
• Balance training should constantly stress
an individual’s limits of stability (balance
threshold).
– Limit of stability
• The distance outside of the base of support that he
or she can go to, without losing control of his or her
center of gravity
– This threshold must be constantly stressed in
a multiplanar, proprioceptively enriched
environment, using functional movement
patterns.
Balance Mechanism
• Proprioceptively Enriched Environments
– Unstable yet controllable environment
– Must use the appropriate progressions and correct
technique at varying speeds to facilitate maximal sensory
input to the central nervous system
– Proper progression
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Floor
Balance beam
Half foam roll
Airex pad*
Dyna Disc
Scientific Rationale
• Benefits
– Improves dynamic joint stabilization.*
• The ability of the kinetic chain to stabilize a joint
during movement
– The main goal for Balance Stabilization
Exercises is to improve reflexive muscle
contractions.*
Balance and Joint Dysfunction
• Muscle imbalances, joint dysfunctions,
pain, and swelling can lead to altered
balance.
– 80% of the adult population experiences low
back pain.
– 80,000–100,000 anterior cruciate ligament
(ACL) injuries occur annually.
– More than two million ankle sprains every
year.
– Thus, the majority of the clients that fitness
professionals work with may have decreased
neuromuscular efficiency and balance.
Balance and Joint Dysfunction
Balance Training Effects on
Injury
• Balance exercises are frequent component of
integrated ACL injury prevention programs,
which have shown promise in reducing the rate
of ACL injuries
– On the basis of a recent systematic review (40),
balance training programs that are performed for at
least 10 minutes a day, 3 times per week for 4 weeks,
appear to improve both static and dynamic balance
ability.
Designing a Balance Program
• Exercise Selection
– Safe
– Progressive
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Easy to hard
Simple to complex
Known to unknown
Static to dynamic
– Proprioceptively challenging
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Floor
Balance beam
Half foam roll
Airex pad*
Variables
• Plane of motion
– Frontal
– Sagittal
– Transverse
• Range of motion
– Full
– Partial
– End-range
Levels of Balance Training
• There are three levels of training within the
National Academy of Sports Medicine’s
OPT™ model—stabilization, strength, and
power
• When progressing Balance Training
exercises go from stabilization to strength
and then strength to power. The same
goes for regressing.* The Single Leg Lift
and Chop is balance stabilization.
Balance Stabilization Exercises
• Exercises involve little joint motion and are designed
to improve reflexive joint stabilization contractions to
improve joint stability.
– When the body is placed in unstable environments, it must
react by contracting the right muscles at the right time to
maintain balance.
Balance Strength Exercises
• More dynamic eccentric and concentric movement
through a full range of motion.
• Require dynamic control in mid-range of motion with
isometric stabilization at the end-range of motion.
Balance Power Exercises
• Develop high levels of eccentric strength, dynamic
neuromuscular efficiency, and reactive joint
stabilization.
Implementing a Balance
Program
• Stabilization Level (Phase 1)
– Select Balance Stabilization Exercises
• Strength Level (Phases 2, 3, and 4)
– Select Balance Strength Exercises
• Power Level (Phase 5)
– Select Balance Power Exercises
Program Design
Summary
• A balance-training program is designed to ensure
optimum neuromuscular efficiency of the entire
kinetic chain.
• Balance-training programs must be systematic and
progressive, following specific guidelines, proper
exercise selection criteria, and detailed program
variables.
• A proper balance-training program follows the same
systematic progression as the OPT Model:
stabilization, strength, and power.