First things first, where are my stylists and who lets me make these videos with my shirt half tucked in and out?
Considering that I teach people to exercise, one would think that I would love to exercise. I wish this was the case. I understand the need for exercise and I certainly know how to exercise correctly but the leap from knowing to doing can sometimes feel as wide as the East River.
Enter exercise toys. I have written before about different tools that I love to use to expedite working out. The bosu ball is one of my favorites but my cats or my kids (I can’t figure out which) trashed it and it will no longer inflate. Oh well, moving on—I’ll get a new one sooner or later.
They can’t break my newest toy—the Fitter First Bongo Board. I have had my eye on this for years and then one night we watched a rather bad movie about the surfer girl who got her arm ripped off by a shark and came back to be a champion surfer. In the movie she is seen practicing on a balance board and I bought mine that night.
Approaching my fiftieth birthday I am one year short of the age at which my father had a stroke that put a damper on the remainder of his life, even though he stuck around for another thirty years. The stroke got him to stop smoking which was a positive but it also robbed him of some functional use of his left side. This affected simple things like handling his wallet and keys which can have far reaching effects both mentally and emotionally.
I inherited his distaste for exercise but I am also aware of how that cost him, so here I am trying to figure out how to stay fit and healthy when I would much rather read or eat.
Enter the balance board. This is not the simplest tool to master. I took a couple of nasty spills trying to get it down before I backed up a bit and learned to balance while holding onto something. But it didn’t take too long once I got the basic gist of it.
If I stay on the board for fifteen minutes, I work up a gentle sweat and feel really great in my hips and joints. At first my knees ached when I was done. My knees are my trouble spot so I was worried but after repeated uses the ache has dissipated and I feel great after finishing a session.
Balance, balance, balance… Nothing is more important to the aging process. Core stability and good balance will take us a long way towards a functional old age and I need to be around to watch my children grow up.