Whenever you poke your head into a commercial or hotel gym, don’t be surprised if you see someone performing standing exercises on an unstable surface. In short, that is a really bad idea, says Golf Digest Chief Fitness Adviser Ben Shear. There’s an old saying in fitness that you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe, meaning you can’t perform any athletic activity proficiently if your lower body is unstable.
Maybe we’re partly to blame for gym goers putting themselves in harms way with this type of training. We once conducted a photo shoot with Dustin Johnson standing on a stability ball while making a backswing. It was eye-catching, but not meant to be duplicated. Apologies if you went out and tried the same thing and ended up with a bruise or two.
So if you’re confused about what you should be doing in the gym, particularly golfers who often perform exercises that mimic an actual swing, here are three things to remember:
1.) Never stand or kneel on an unstable surface while holding dumbbells, stretch bands, medicine balls, etc. Any exercise involving an external load should be done on a stable surface.
2.) If you want to challenge your lower-body stability, leave those squishy gel pads in the corner and instead work out on one leg or in a split stance (one leg forward, one leg back). You can do a variety of exercises and you’ll be in a much safer position to recover should you lose your balance.
3.) Instability training with things such as Bosu balls and physio balls are fine if you’re training your upper body. Lying on a physio ball is marginally unsafe if you’re working with external loads. They rarely pop, but it has happened. With a Bosu, a great exercise is to flip it over and do push-ups using the hard plastic side as a brace. It really challenges your shoulder muscles and core to keep you in balance.
