Inspired Bicycles just vaulted onto my top five Parkour videos list. Having “bicycles” and “Parkour” together doesn’t seem right, but there’s really no better way to explain it. I wouldn’t have imagined some of that stuff was possible. Really great. (via waxy)

NSCA reports on an interesting study suggesting you can greatly reduce ankle sprain risk with stability pad training (PDF), especially if you're in the high risk groups (overweight, and/or previous sprains).

I've been enjoying Frostillicus' blog lately. His current post is a good example, on Troy Palamalu's work with Marv Marinovich. Check the crazy (as a fox?) videos. Lots of the sites I read hate stability balls and their ilk so this is certainly a departure. Here's all the SportsLab videos.

Straight to the Bar always runs good stuff, tip o' the hat to them for these two videos. First, insane balancing and body control demonstrated by Rodney Mullin's skateboarding. Second, the Secret Service Snatch Test (SSST) involves snatching a 53 lb. kettlebell as many times as you can in 10 minutes (does the Secret Service really do that?). Anyway, Dustin Silveri scores 195 repetitions. The guy moved over 10,000 pounds from his knees to over his head in 10 minutes. I'll have to give that one a try (with a DB) one of these days. I bet it's a helluva workout.

A few of the sites I frequent seem to be down on stability ball training and other forms of unstable surface training. Mostly it's shrugged off as "not functional" or "you get all the balance training you need just living." Personally, I find it useful, but I'm not a slave to it (or any other training modality). With that in mind, I was interested to read Art De Vany's take on Paul Chek ("simply put, he is among the best"), and in particular, this bit:

The idea is to work out on an unsteady surface to train your balance. But, the more important point (which I think you may find only Chek among trainers points out clearly) is to trigger unsteady states wherein the dorsal horn must quickly activate a response. The dorsal horn is down near the end of the spine and it is responsible for the extremely quick corrections that do not have time to go up the spinal cord to the brain and back down in time to make the correction. This tends to over ride learned, disfunctional neural patterns that come from protecting the lower spine from past injuries or poor patterns.

I know pretty much jack about Chek, and had never heard of the dorsal horn before (even now it sounds vaguely like the "five dollar shelf stretcher" the grocery store manager from my youth used to send new stockboys to the storeroom to find when they couldn't find room on the shelves on freight day) but having suffered back injuries in the past, I know it can happen in an instant on one off step, far quicker than your brain could ever brace for intentionally, so the notion of training the right corrective reflexes rings true to me.

So I was going to write this thing on balance training, but then I watched this video of these guys playing on a slackline and it made me feel inadequate. I gotta get a slackline kit for me and the girls; it looks like a blast.

Anyway, on to what I was originally going to write... I had a very good Ultimate season this year, and one of the things I noticed was that I converted many more "accidental plays" than in recent years. For example, after bobbling the disc I'd make the catch anyway. Or someone would throw me an unexpected pass (or in an unexpected manner) and I'd have to catch it reflexively. Stuff like that. There are lots of things I improved this year that could contribute to making more of those plays: increased focus, better fitness, etc. But, for no empirical reason whatsoever, I like to attribute it to balance training. My warm-up for my daily stretching routine included about five minutes of balance work. Each day I'd mess around with some combination of the following:

• Balance on one foot...
  • ...while slowly moving your head from side-to-side.
  • ...while slowly moving your head in random circles.
  • ...shake your head vigorously, and then recover your balance.
  • ...with your eyes closed.
  • ...standing on your toes rather than flat-footed
  • ...standing on a 2x4.
• Walk a 2x4...
  • ...frontwards and backwards.
  • ...turning 180 degrees each time you get to the end.
  • ...and crouch to pick up implements stacked at the end, bring them back to the other end, and crouch to replace them.
  • ...with various combinations of eyes closed and head movements.
• Stand on a biofoam roller for time (a pool noodle is a much cheaper option, but it crushes, breaks, and generally doesn't behave in a very log-like manner - it's still harder to walk than a 2x4 though).

You get the idea. I have no idea how much this helped my game, but as you're doing these exercises you can feel all these little proprioceptive firings that you just don't work otherwise. I believe it made a difference, which is enough for me (heck, maybe it was the believing itself that made the difference).

There are all kinds of workplace recommendations for five-minute breaks every hour or so. Might as well use that time for something fun, and imagine the looks you'll get when you drag a 2x4 to the office.