BOSU Exercises Are Rubbish
Go to almost any gym in America and you will find a wide variety of exercise balls, balance disks, and wobble boards that are used to build core stability. The core muscles act like a corset around the spine to provide stability for lower and upper body movements.
For example, squatting on BOSU balls (ball with flat surface on the bottom) requires activation of the core muscles so that you can maintain balance and perform the exercise. Unfortunately, BOSU exercises decrease the capacity to lift heavier weight during the exercise.
Consequently, stability training and BOSU exercises decrease the capacity to strengthen major muscle groups. Not good! Jeff Willarclson, a strength coach from Eastern Illinois University, concluded that training on unstable surfaces is not effective for developing core strength and power because the exercises involve light loads, long tension times and slow speeds.
Free-weight exercises from the ground using dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells are the best ways to develop core strength because the movements are more similar to the physical demands of sport and daily life. [sources: Strength and Conditioning Journal, Fitness RX]
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06-04-08 at 5:25 am
That doesn’t make Bosu exercises rubbish! They’re still a great way to build stability–just don’t hop on a Bosu every single time you lift weights. They can add another dimension to your training…and I still stand by the fact that the Bosu is a great tool for doing ab exercises on.
06-24-08 at 9:03 pm
Check your research again. Instability requires increased stabilizer activation. So while exercises on unstable surfaces won’t necessarily increase prime mover activity, they will increase neuromuscular demand on stabilizers requiring more efficient movement. This can therefore lead to more efficient use of prime mover during free-weight exercises due to ease of stability.
In fact, some of the top Strength Coaches utilize instability (within reason) to promote this very thing.
06-25-08 at 11:36 pm
I’m not an expert, just someone who is very out of shape. My trainer started me on the Bosu and working on other balance type exercises. It has increased my strength, agility and balance so much that other people I see in the gym have commented on it. All this in a short amount of time. It has been very successful.
06-27-08 at 3:15 pm
Okay you just sit there and the keyboard and type up your criticism while us others are increasing our stability, balance, reflexes balance and exercising! It’s a tool! You don’t use every tool in your toolbox, every time on every job.
09-03-08 at 7:58 am
I agree with everyone else here, this is a ridiculous article. Bosu training is great for stability and form, and nobody is going to be using it every day, at every workout.
01-15-09 at 9:26 pm
I am with the author on this one,
Bosu balls are great for stability, but only bosu ball stability. balancing on a ball is a skill, you can better at it sure, but its not transferable.
in the real world, the body or an external load upon the body (barbell, heavy shopping bags etc) is the unstable object, not the surface. so Bosu ball training has little carry over to athletics or daily life. unless your sport or daily life involves balancing on a bosu ball.
I remember there was a study on this carried out with down hill skiiers. down hill skiiers possess amaizing core strength and balance yet none of them were particularly good on Bosu balls. After training with bosa balls, no improvement in their balance or strength was observed. So, being good on a bosu ball means very little outside of being good on a bosu ball.
also I think they are unsafe, particularly if used by untrained people or used in conjunction with weights. untrained people have enough work just stablising their bodyweight doing squats and press ups, let alone balancing on a ball at the same time, and lifting weights on an unstable surface is asking for trouble.
Basically I dont know anyone who has developed a strong core using bosu balls exclusively and I know a lot of people with weak cores who use bosu balls extensively.
I will concede they are another tool in the tool box and may have some usefull applications, but the way they are marketed is very misleading. They are a massively overused gimmick and most people would be better served by performing the same exercises with a barbell or bodyweight