1. Base of Support
By decreasing your base of support during an exercise you are making things more unstable and hence forcing your body to compensate by working harder to stabilize. For standing exercises (eg dumbbell shoulder press) the easiest way to achieve this is to stand on one leg instead of two. Sometimes it might even be enough to move your legs closer together (for example in a swiss ball pushup) to increase the stability challenge.
For exercises where your arms form a base of support (eg front plank), you can decrease your base of support by raising one arm off the ground.
Unstable Surface Training – The other way to manipulate your base of support is through the use of unstable surfaces. By performing exercises on equipment like a swiss ball, balance board or suspension trainer you can increase the degree of instability and train your joints to stabilize more effectively.
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2. Vision
Your vision can also be used to your advantage when training stability. I’m sure you have come across times when surfing and your vision is not optimal (such as a barrel crashing over your head) or when you are snowboarding or skiing during a whiteout and can’t see properly. Well either way you need to maintain your stability during these situations. And you can train this the same way.
Close your eyes – Performing an exercise with your eyes closed is a guaranteed way to increase the challenge and improve your stability. Stand up and have a go at performing a single leg squat with your eyes closed.
Looking up – This is another cool way to manipulate your stability. Stand on one leg then look up at the ceiling and notice how your ankle and knee will start to move around a bit. You can try this from time to time with other exercise for an extra stability challenge.
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3. Movement Complexity
By increasing the movement complexity of an exercise we can also challenge stability. For example a 180 degree jump squat has a greater movement complexity than a regular jump squat and therefore you will need a greater amount of stability to land correctly and stabilize.
This can also apply to manipulating your centre of mass (or centre of gravity). For example if you perform a split squat and simultaneously lift a dumbbell up and across your body this will change your centre of mass throughout the exercise and cause your body to work harder to keep stable.
Once you are comfortable with an exercise, you can always look for new ways to add to the complexity and therefore increase the stability demands on your body.
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Hopefully you can see how these 3 variables can be manipulated to train your total body stability.
By incorporating more instability into your surf and snow workouts you can be sure that your joints will become more stable and and your performance will improve
