Trick Boards: Exercise Your Body & Your Sixth Sense
Balance Boarding became a smash hit exercise during the pandemic as gyms closed, exercise bikes sold out across Amazon and people turned to exercises that didn’t require massive amounts of space to achieve. Along came the balance board which started to blow up in popularity due to Tiktok influencers showing how easy and fun it was to work out from home and learn awesome cool tricks.
New to SkateHut, Trick Board Balance boards have an excellent range of both board shapes and graphics for people to learn and master. The wider surface skimboard/ surf style of the Surf - Wave and Fish Models which allow a generous amount of real estate on the board which benefits beginners looking to learn how to balance initially but also for maneuvers like sitting, squatting, board walking and other yoga & Surf based moves which are much more advanced.
The double kick tail snowboard shaped decks of the Jackal & Get Tricky boards allow for more technical moves influenced from skateboarding as two tails means you can pop from either end of the board to achieve ollie’s, pop shuvits and more.
Benefits of Balance Boarding
It might come as a surprise though that the humble balance board is a lot older than people think, being invented back in 1952 by WWII pilot Stanley Washburn Jr who observed children on the African Gold coast riding planks of wood on top of fallen logs and making his first one for his daughter’s birthday and decided to make them commercially. In the late sixties, many skiers used the boards to build strength in their ankles and work on their balance but balance boards have wide-reaching health benefits.
In terms of the direct health benefits of using a Trick Board, they are perfect for developing your core muscles but also for building up muscles around your ankles, knees and even shoulders which can help as building muscles to potentially prevent future injuries. Even for users who are injured, Balance boards are trusted and advised by many physiotherapists as a low-impact way of regaining and building strength in weaker joints and muscles and actively help to prevent the injury from reoccurring. Something that many people with lower back pain will be happy to hear is that using a balance board is a great way to work on poor posture which is a leading cause of lower back pain in adults. Unlike other forms of exercise you cannot overuse a balance board to the point it causes damage and for people who struggle to fit exercise into their busy schedules, you can effectively develop from using a balance board for as little as ten minutes a day, three times a week!
The unexpected benefit that regular use of a Balance board provides is the development of the proprioception sense which for the greater part many people are completely unaware of and scientists informally call our “Sixth Sense”. Proprioception is how our brain keeps track of our limbs and informs it’s awareness of where our bodies are in a given space. An example of your Proprioception sense at work is when you close your eyes and touch your nose, without this sense you would be completely unable to achieve this or even walk down the street without having to watch your legs and feet make contact with the floor with each step. Your nervous system has a constant feedback loop of signals telling the brain where your limbs are and how they are interacting with the environment around you. Using a balance board will challenge your balance and the position of where your body is which will trigger muscles around your joints to contract and relax to compensate for your balance and these micro-adjustments allow your body to react and correct itself faster over time to even potentially react and avoid injuries.
