Survival of the Fittest

At Cressey Performance, stability balls are holey. No, that’s not a typo. I mean employees literally use knives to puncture them. With glee.

Don’t believe me? Here’s videographic evidence of one of the founders of this Boston-based high-performance training facility, Tony Gentilcore, expressing his disdain for what is, Cressey Performance employees say, an oft-misused piece of fitness equipment.

YouTube link tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_BBCmvFERs

Their hatred stems from the wide misinterpretation of how to develop functional fitness.

You see, many trainers widely recommend doing squats, lunges, curls, and anything else you can manage while teetering precariously on a stability (or Swiss) ball, balance disc, Bosu ball or wobble board. Countless articles are filled with reasons why this is a fabulous idea, the main being that such exercises add a balance component and thus not only engage the target muscles, but also engage lots and lots of small stabilizing muscles. Meaning, you get the extra benefit of improved proprioception (awareness of your body in space), so why not?! Right? Right?

Even the magazine jumped on the balance bandwagon, publishing an article about how balance boards aren’t just for balancing anymore. (It was years ago! I didn’t know any better!) [Hides in shame]

[But ref! I wasn’t the only one! Pleeeease don’t send me to the sin bin …]

PROBLEM IS, the latest research shows that while doing such exercises are great for rehabbing ankle injuries, they can actually de-power healthy athletes. So if you’re healthy, and your goals have anything at all to do with getting stronger, faster and more powerful, you actually don’t want to wobble. (That’s not to say you should cut out abs and upper-body exercises like pushups on the ball — I’m just talking about exercises that involve standing or kneeling on such contraptions.)

But don’t just take it from me — below, an interview with Eric Cressey, MS, CSCS, the brains behind this research and one of the best in the fitness biz. Also, if you’re interested, Cressey just released his new book, Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks with the Ultimate Weight-Training Program (De Capo, 2008). (I already read it — two thumbs up, and if I had more I’d point them skyward, too.)

Jen Sinkler (JS): How do you define functional fitness? And how is that different from widely held beliefs?

Eric Cressey (EC): Excellent questions. The term “functional” as it relates to exercise was first applied in a rehabilitation context, as therapists worked to help restore function in patients through modalities that best simulated and carried over to their daily lives. I feel strongly that functional training (or rehabilitation) should be specific to the task at hand for an individual in a given environment. The problem nowadays is that we are trying to say that a given exercise (or training style) is functional to everything — and that’s just not possible.

It goes without saying that different individuals have different “required” and “desired” functions to accomplish in their daily lives. In its truest sense, functional training refers to preparing individuals for the demands that lie ahead in everyday activities, work, recreational activities and competitive athletics. Because these demands are different for everyone, it’s important to realize that true functional training programs must be specific to the individual.

JS: What happens to a healthy athlete who does exercises standing on an unstable surface? And why don’t these exercises work to make you a stronger, more balanced athlete?

EC: Our research showed that replacing as little as 2 to 3 percent of overall training volume with unstable-surface training (UST) in healthy, trained athletes impaired the development of sprinting speed and vertical jump height — and there was a trend toward significance on the agility front, as well. There are a ton of reasons for the decrease in power output and performance. In a broad sense, all of these explanations can be considered fundamentally related to the fact that UST does not adhere to the principle of specificity of training.

The vast majority of athletic endeavors involve stable surfaces where instability is applied further up the kinetic chain. Therefore, it becomes important to differentiate between instability at the foot, which is accustomed to stable surfaces in closed-chain motion, and instability at the torso and arms, which often encounter instability while the base is stable. In this regard, unstable surface training may prove more useful in measures aimed at training the core and upper body musculature (e.g., movements seated on or lying across a stability ball, with or without added resistance) than with exercises targeting the lower body. I could go into a complete physiology and biomechanics discussion, but that took me 94 pages in my master’s thesis! Let’s just say that unstable surface training provides for some unfavorable biomechanical consequences (namely, overpronation), lower force production and impaired plyometrics activity (longer amortization phase between eccentric and concentric actions).

Believe it or not, there’s also some evidence to suggest that healthy individuals who train on unstable surfaces are more likely to encounter both chronic and traumatic knee injuries. My theory is that if you work to lock up an ankle that doesn’t need extra stability — and encourage anterior-weight-bearing in the process (via overpronation) — you’re asking for hypermobility (excess movement) at the joint above.

JS: When is unstable surface training appropriate?

EC: Lower-body UST has a ton of merit in those returning from ankle sprains. UST has proven effective time and time again with respect to addressing the chronic functional ankle instability seen in lateral ankle sprains. Basically, this is a proprioceptive deficit in the peroneal muscle group on the lateral aspect of the shin. These muscles prevent excessive inversion, but if they don’t fire fast enough, you’re likely to re-sprain.

I also feel that unstable surfaces can be applied effectively in the upper body — as in the case of unstable push-ups, or dumbbell presses on a stability ball. It really comes down to where you apply the instability. If it’s at or above the hips, you’re golden.

Honestly, the problem is that the only research (before we came along, that is) was done on injured patients and untrained individuals. Comparing them to healthy, trained athletes is altogether inappropriate. As a result, rehabilitation protocols were promoted to healthy individuals as an effective training initiative when, in fact, they are counterproductive.

In spite of this new research, you won’t likely see a change in people using them this way simply because a) few people actually read the research and b) a lot of people have a significant vested financial interest in the success of these implements, so they aren’t about to jump ship when they’re still separating people from their money with poor training recommendations.

JS: Who does have the green light to do exercises standing on balance contraptions (i.e., what if you don’t care about getting stronger, faster, more powerful)?

EC: At risk of sounding insensitive, if you aren’t concerned about being stronger, faster or more powerful, then you have no right to complain when you get hurt. Unstable surface training in the lower body impairs power and rate of force development. Even if you’re not an athlete, even if you’re a 90-year-old woman concerned about falling, don’t you think that fast and forceful muscle actions are going to help prevent you from breaking your hip?

Honestly, I wish more weekend warriors would think of themselves as athletes, and not just gerbils running on treadmills or circus clowns standing on stability balls.

JS: How should healthy, competitive athletes train instead? What kinds of exercises should we do?

EC: Squats, deadlifts, lunges, Olympic lifts, bench press, push-ups, rows, chin-ups [ed. note: of course!], bridges, medicine-ball throws, sprinting, jumping, sled pushing/pulling, mobility drills, etc.

The list could really go on and on. We do a thousand things, but honestly, aside from a few unique circumstances, outside of the realm of rehabilitation, lower-body unstable surface training isn’t justified.

ON THAT NOTE, please enjoy the following videos. (What do you think Mr. Cressey would have to say to these fellas?)

YouTube link tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLW-RpX0T38&

YouTube link tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUN2yjjKvZI

YouTube link tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlSKNTotop8&

Do you have questions? Differing opinions? Stories of stability gone wrong? Leave your thoughts in the comment section. And remember, if you want to get your hands on Cressey’s new book, Maximum Strength, click here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 6:22 am and is filed under Interviews, Strength Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.