Balance vs. Stability

Are you familiar with the game Jenga?

It’s a game where you stack small wooden pieces on top of one another and then remove them one by one from the middle of the stack, until eventually they are all balancing very tenuously on only one or two of the pieces. In some cases, what occurs is pretty impressive from a balancing perspective.

But I ask you this: Would you put a couple of dumb bells on top of the Jenga? No, of course you wouldn’t because it would come crashing down. The Jenga isn’t supportive enough. It isn’t STABLE enough.

Yet as sure as you’re reading this, there is a trainer somewhere right now making his or her client as unstable as a Jenga by using a BOSU ball or some other piece of useless crap found in gyms in an effort to be “functional”. They are both making the very common mistake of training “balance” when they think they are training “stability”.

Let me tell you my friends – there is nothing functional nor is there anything stable (and therefore, there is nothing beneficial) to turning yourself into a wobbly stack of joints like a human Jenga. If supporting and stabilizing your own bodyweight in itself is too difficult, then you are training your balance and therefore working on a probably useless exercise.

A VERY common misuse of fitness terminology I hear and read very often is the use of the terms “balance” and “stability” interchangeably, as if they were synonyms. Balance and stability are not synonyms in the dictionary, and they are surely not synonyms with regard to exercise and training.

In terms of balance and its relation to fitness, many exercisers (and again, sadly many trainers) train balance when they think they’re training stability. Balance, from an exercise stand point, is simply the ability to stay upright and/or not to fall. Many exercisers who possess great balance, as a result, can perform some pretty impressive tasks. Many of these exercises, although impressive in their execution, are generally useless and sometimes dangerous – and they certainly aren’t “functional” at all. A good friend and fellow trainer of mine refers to them as “stupid trainer tricks”. They may look cool, but they aren’t going to get you to your goals any faster.

The picture above is a good example. The guy squatting obviously has very impressive balance. He has a skill that probably 99.99% of the population cannot do. I’ve been around gyms for a very long time, and I’ve never met anyone who could do a full squat on a stability ball with a loaded Olympic barbell.

And if I tried, I might be able to think of someone dumber – but I can’t right now.

That is a movement that is a) dangerous and b) holds zero benefit from a bio-mechanical standpoint.

Which is the issue in a nutshell when it comes to balance training: A movement like this has NO BENEFIT for the exerciser. Add in the risk factor and you have a very bad idea.

He is not stronger as a result. He is not more stable. He is not more flexible. No research has ever supported that he would be any of these things and common sense backs up that research.

The only way this would benefit him is if he went somewhere in life or competed in some sport where everting the ankles while performing on an uneven round surface were necessary.

I’ll be awaiting your emails telling me where this situation occurs.

Whoops...spoke too soon. This woman and her trainer may be bigger jackasses than that guy and his trainer:

Stability, on the other hand is CRUCIAL to train regardless of what your goals are. Improving your stability from an exercise standpoint has limitless benefits to exercisers of all levels. A body builder will be able to move heavier weight. An athlete will be faster. A senior citizen will be less likely to have knee pain.

This is simply because they can support more weight, and prevent motion where it’s supposed to be prevented, and therefore generate motion where it needs to be generated. A stable base is like the supporting columns on your house: They are as stable as can be and therefore can support the weight of your home. Can you imagine if those support beams were Jengas?!?!

Think of an Olympic power lifter: Would he be able to move more weight or less if his shoulder joint remained firmly in his shoulder socket (i.e. more stable)?

Think of an NBA player: Would he be able to jump higher if his knees didn’t crash together every time he squatted?

You can’t shoot a cannon from a canoe my friends – you need a stable supportive base to produce any force at all when exercising.

If you are more stable, you can move weight more efficiently. Whether that weight is a dumb bell or your own bodyweight is irrelevant – it will get you closer to your goals regardless of what they are.

Training stability and how to see improvements therein is a far more complex discussion whose depth and breadth far exceed the time and space that we have here. However, here are some pointers when trying to perform stability training:

1. If you can’t do it on both feet (or hands) on solid ground, doing it on a piece of balance equipment is a waste of time. Make sure you are 100% stable with good posture when you’re supported first – then look to progress.

2. Just because it looks cool or different, or it involves a new piece of equipment, doesn’t mean it’s “functional”. In fact, it’s more likely to be a stupid trainer trick.

3. Less torso movement usually means more stability, which is a good thing. Watch yourself in the mirror as you exercise – more than just a little movement throughout the mid section probably means the exercise is too hard because you can’t stabilize yourself.

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