Nike Balance board

[Karly14 21]

Has anybody bought, or tried out the new nike balance board? Im thinking of buying it, but 179.99 is steep wihtout knowing too much about it. The nike rep said it was great, but that doesnt really mean a whole lot. thanks guys

[Adam91 0]

IMO balance boards are pretty standard and only come in a few different options I'd go to your local fitness store first.

[Gongshow11 1]

build one for yourself. go to www.hockeyschoolonline.com it will cost you max 20$

[rausch27 1]

i dont see why anybody would spend 180 bucks for one. i use 2 2X4's and it works great

[biff44 0]

$179? Man, you are getting hosed. Do a google search, I turned up 5 hits on nike balance board for $70. Here is a link with some $30 boards:

http://www.bizrate.com/buy/products__att29...--12050100.html

But like someone else said, you can build one really easily. A simple one is a 2'X2' piece of 1/2 inch plywood with a 2"x2"x2' stick glued down the center.

I personally do not find the balance boards that useful, they are too unstable to do any serious weight lifting. They seem more geared to making you a circus high wire balance act rather than giving you hockey balance!

If you need a wobble board, here is another good site:

http://www.fitterfirst.com/balance-boards....Ebalance_boards

Some people love these foam rolls for balance training, expecially ankles:

http://www.fitterfirst.com/massage-therape...age_therapeutic

If you want to spend your time developing strength and balance, rather than always falling over while working out, you can get two of these disk pillows and do squats, stickhandle, etc, on them. You do not fall off easily, but it is hard to keep the ankles straight on the unstable surface:

http://www.performbetter.com/detail.aspx_Q...ategoryID_E_231

[biff44 0]

I also remember seeing a hockey website once where a guy made two wooden sandles with a thin wooden "blade" maybe 1" high underneath. He walked around, did step ups, etc, and said they developed great balance! Unfortunately, I lost the link.

[Gongshow11 1]

they are awesome for balance and the core, do 4x10 sets of squats with just a plate, bet ur all over the place

[hockechamp14 0]

I use a bouzu ball to bend my knees and balance on for a minutne at a time. Then I progressed into throwing and catching heavier and heavier medicine balls. I'm a tank on the ice now (as far as taking and giving checks), and improved a lot since march, but I don't know how much this kind of thing affected it. I'm sure it didn't hurt.

[EndBoards 0]

I did squats with a Reebok balance board last week. I really didn't notice much difference in what I felt like I could do. I've been squatting around 245 lately, and I did 225 just because I assumed I probably should cut back on the amount of weight with the board...

That board had three settings & I was on the middle one. I wobbled a little bit on the way down, but I don't think I ever hit the stops and I know that I never touched the floor..

The funny thing was that I got lots of inquisitive looks. People were looking at me going, "what the heck is that thing, and why is he using it..???"

[Gongshow11 1]

hit the stops? u using a smith machine? get off that and hit the squat rack and try this again. i can do a massive amount of weight on the smith, much less in free weight

[biff44 0]

That is because a REBOK balance board is a joke! It is for babes in their aerobics step classes.

We are talking about real balance boards here. Ones with 1/2 of a ball stuck under it--making it very unstable.

BWT, I would recommend anyone doing squats with any weight on a balance board to have an alert spotter standing behind them! Don't want to die or anything serious!