Being a former gymnast, I'd like to think my balance and stability are still on point. In reality, though, I'm not as nimble as I used to be (she says as a mid-twenty-something), so I'm always up for a challenge to build that stability and get stronger. During an interview with The Ultimate Surfer semifinalist Malia Ward I had last month, she mentioned that Bosu-ball squats help her work on balance, but they're not just any Bosu-ball squats: she does them on the flat side of the ball, making the surface particularly unstable.
Ward inspired me when she said she performs these Bosu-ball squats — weighted and bodyweight — with twists. "That helps me practice for when I want to turn my body on a wave," she explained. Sure enough, I needed to test these twists out for myself. They challenged not only my core strength, but also my lower- and upper-body strength. (I felt it in my upper body when holding a dumbbell.) And don't even get me started about the stability aspect. Brutal!
This move is advanced; however, you can modify it by doing the twisting squat on the ground, which still requires you to engage your core and channel your stability. I've incorporated the Bosu-ball squat twists into my workout circuits or added them as finishers. I don't own a Bosu ball, so I've been utilizing my Terra-Core. It's similar, though it's more of a cylinder shape and has a wider range of uses.
Ahead, check out footage of how I did bodyweight and weighted Bosu-ball squat twists on either side of my Terra-Core — because I couldn't just balance on the flat surface from the get-go. I had to work my way up. I did not shy away from this challenge despite the difficulty, and I learned a new move in the process that I'll keep doing in workouts to come.