So you hopped on the trend and bought yourself a balance board… but was it just a waste of money, or do they actually work? Fear not, for I have good news for you! Balance boards are an excellent tool to use to supplement your cross-training, especially if you’re looking to improve your balance for adage, pirouettes, arabesques, and pretty much anything in else in ballet really!
There are a couple of science-backed reasons which explain why balance boards are so effective in stopping the wobbles…
#1 – Improved brain-muscle connection via the nervous system
Okay, if that sounds a little sciency and complicated (mind is boggled), let me break it down for you…
When we balance, our feet and our ankles (alongside our stabiliser muscles… more on this later) are required to make tiny weeny adjustments to achieve stability by keeping our centre of mass directly over our working leg (think belly button over toes)…
These tiny adjustments are actually controlled by our brain, which sends signals to our muscles telling them to relax and contract via neurons and synapses which are part of our nervous system!
When we practice balancing over and over and over again (hint hint; by using balance boards), the connection between our brain and our muscles via these synapses strengthens. We call this process ‘synaptic plasticity’.
This strengthened connection means that the brain can send these signals to the muscles wayyy more quickly and precisely, so that when we start to fall off balance again, we are able to regain stability and control much more effectively.
#2 – Strengthening of the stabiliser muscles
And now we can go back to those all-important stabiliser muscles, which include the calves, ankles, quads, hips and core…
So as we already know, when we are trying to balance our stabiliser muscles are making those tiny weeny adjustments to keep our centre of mass directly over our working leg (the optimal position for balance).
Our muscles make these adjustments by contracting eccentrically (contracting while lengthening) and concentrically (contracting while shortening).
You’ll get the best results from your balance boards if you can work on maintaining balance on the board for 30-60 seconds (or as long as you can within reason- don’t hurt yourself!).
This is because when we balance for a prolonged period of time, we are actually training endurance in these stabiliser muscles, which is really going to help us in ballet during those tricky adage combos which feel like they’re lasting forever!
Safety first!!!
Now I before I bring this post to a close, let’s have a chat about the need to be SENSIBLE with our balance boards so that we can avoid injury (sorry to be a party pooper, but these things just have to be said…)!
First of all, you need to achieve a strong level of balance on a FLAT, STABLE SURFACE before you can even think to attempt using a balance board. If you can’t balance on a solid floor, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to balance on a surface that wobbles, and there is a high chance that you could injure yourself if you try to use a balance board without having adequate strength in the feet, ankles and other stabiliser muscles.
I would ALWAYS recommend supervision when using a balance board, especially if you’ve never used one before, just in case you fall off and hurt yourself. It’s also a good idea to stand next to a ballet barre or surface (as long as it’s not sharp) that you can easily grasp on to for support if your start to lose your balance.
And finally… we have all seen the Instagram reels featuring super-talented ballerinas standing on one leg on a balance board whilst en pointe. Crazy, right!? Please DO NOT attempt this as it can be incredibly unsafe, and let’s face it, whilst it might look cool, the whole point of cross-training is to prevent injury, not to become injured whilst doing it!!!
Final thoughts on Balance boards and ballet… do they really work?
So there we have it… in my humble opinion, when used safely and responsible, balance boards are a GREAT tool for improving the BRAIN-MUSCLE CONNECTION whilst strengthening the STABILISER MUSCLES to improve balance and stability in ballet! Go and grab yours out of the cupboard now, and after a couple of weeks of use even a hurricane won’t be able to knock you down mid-développé!
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Bibliography and References
Some of the concepts included in this article have been clarified and informed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2024)
Open AI, 2024. ChatGPT [October 2024]. Available at: https://www.openai.com/chatgpt [Accessed 6 October 2024].