With spring break looming just a few weeks away, several dozen young women waited for the Abs and Buns’ class at a local college fitness center to begin.
They wanted bikini-worthy results, and they wanted them fast.
Fitness instructor Elizabeth Edelman noted the women as she readied her fitness studio for a balance training class and sighed. “It’s all about calories here,” she explained.
But a growing number of people across the country are recognizing the importance of core training. These are workouts that strengthen muscles in the trunk of the body, such as the abdomen, chest and back. And they’re focusing not just on calories burned or body parts worked, but on one of the hottest fitness trends of the year: balance.
In Edelman’s class, called Bosu Core, participants balance their abdomens, shoulders and knees on a Bosu Balance Trainer, a rubber dome mounted on a plastic platform, and do crunches, leg lifts and other moves. Keeping their bodies stable forces them to work their transverse abdominal or “core” muscles.
A strong core means a more stable body. With such far-reaching benefits and a variety of applications, it’s no wonder that the American Council on Exercise named balance training the top fitness trend of 2005.
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“Improving balance can have a direct positive impact on activities we enjoy,” says Dr. Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise.
Heather Folau discovered that after she began working with a stability ball about a year ago. Folau, 31, is trim and athletic. But with “a lot of back problems,” she wanted to strengthen her upper body. Since starting stability training, her back pain has subsided, her posture has improved, and she has more strength to lift and carry her two children.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Victoria Rodriguez ([email protected])