Imagine holding a barbell over your head. There's not much weight on the bar, so you figure you've got this. Piece of cake!
Now imagine the ground moving beneath you.
The reality is that the bar moves. The weights are suspended from the ends of the bar with elastic bands, so they are constantly in motion. As far as your brain, your inner ear and your muscles are concerned, YOU are moving. So the synapses are firing like a machine gun in an effort to keep the bar steady. It's a whole new take on isometrics!
Now imagine standing upright with the bar over your head while maintaining the correct posture...head up, chest out, back straight, tummy pulled in, breathing steady. My daughter calls it "pageant posture". I call it, "punishment posture."
Once you've got everything all aligned you take about twenty steps, turn and walk back. After forty steps you feel like you've had a full work-out. You're done. Bye bye. Headed home now.
But, more important for me...every aspect of my body that is associated with staying upright and not tumbling down the stairs, falling off a step stool or tripping on a curb and landing on my face (and I've done all three) has been slapped awake, scrubbed up and given a good talking to!
Our bodies are efficient little machines. They store fat efficiently, they conserve energy efficiently and any brain cells we're not using are shunted off to a corner to shrivel and die. That's why exercises like this are so valuable for those of us who want to continue running on all cylinders. After all, what's the fun of driving a high performance sports car if the steering doesn't work?
I already feel a bit more "balanced" after just a few weeks of this kind of work-out. It's not because I have built my muscles or become stronger...though I have. It's because my brain has re-awakened the part of itself that needs to deal with the challenge of the Earthquake Bar. And that translates to easier and more balanced movement all day every day.
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