Pono Board Review (and Discount)

By Crabby McSlacker

What exactly is a Pono Board? Do you surf on it? Fling it? Predict the future by letting ancient Hawaiian spirits telepathically move aqua-colored balls around on its sleek wooden surface until your destiny is revealed?

Nope, it's none of these things. A Pono Board is a kinder, gentler balance board that can be used to add a bit of instability to various exercises in a way that is mercifully unlikely to send you sprawling on your face in an ignominious heap of kluzitude.

Ta da!

According to The Pono People, it was designed to feel like a beach workout, actively engaging the core, but not too difficult.

But that's not why I eagerly agreed to acquire and review a springy thingy of my very own. (Disclaimer: I didn't pay for it). What was the reason?

The Pono Board is also designed to function as a stand-up desk accessory, yay!

Here's some more info and a verdict on how I like my Pono Board.

Finding the Right Combination

Based on the picture above, what might you guess this post is about?

Hmm, I guess only brilliant/obsessive/imaginary followers of this odd little blog could have any clue.

OK, another hint: here's a similar picture I posted a while back:

Notice what's different? And so what sort of post might you be in for?

Adding Instability to Your Workout: Clever Idea or Clueless Trend?

Photo swiped from BalanceWines

So this was supposed to be a post all about how playing around with unstable surfaces or loads can be a super-effective way to pump up your exercise routine.

However, turns out the situation is a little more complicated than I originally thought!

So here's what happened: a helpful reader left a comment on the creating a cheap home gym post that mentioned sandbag training, which looks to be an awesome low cost do-it-yourself home gym option.  In checking it out, I came across a explanation of why it's way better to hoist sneaky unpredictable shifting bags of sand than solid, boring, immobile free weights.  (Or, heaven forbid, to use even sissier gym equipment like stationary bikes or strength training machines). 

The key is, apparently: instability!

Here's what got me all enthusiastic about incorporating more stability challenges into my workout. To quote a sandbag training guy:

"Instability exercises are based on the well-proven idea that an asymmetrical, shifting weight produces far better exercise results, because it forces your body to compensate and work out dozens of accessory muscles that otherwise would not see use." By contrast, using regular "well-balanced, symmetrical exercise equipment can leave weak points in your musculature."

Sounds great!  Plus it totally explains all the trendy functional fitness people in my gym running around doing weird scary shit like hopping up and down on one foot on bosu balls while juggling 50 lb barbells with their eyes closed.

However, is it true? Do you get better exercise results if you challenge your stability while working out? 

Well, as it turns out... maybe!  The answer varies depending on what you're looking to do, how you approach it, and how you define "better exercise results."

First up:

Unstable Surface Training

While there are a lot of different ways to adding instability to your routine and challenge your balance, the one that's the most controversial of late is Unstable Surface Training, or UST.

Seems a lot of personal trainers are promoting UST as a creative means to achieve most of your functional fitness aspirations. Working out on an unstable surface like a vibrating platform, bosu ball, wobble board or stability ball is supposed to do a bunch of cool things. These include recruiting more muscles, making your workout tougher in the same amount of time, improving your balance, strengthening your core, and conferring the ability to wrestle yourself out of the jaws of bloodthirsty grizzly bears should any attack you while you're snowboarding down a steep Alaskan mountainside pursued by an avalanche.

Or something like that.

But despite all the personal trainers hauling out spherical objects or other wobbly surfaces and making people do weird things on them, recent research has challenged the notion that this technique will make you fitter and stronger. In fact, an oft-cited study says that UST actually "attenuates performance improvements in healthy, trained athletes."

Wait, what?

But as the author explained further in an excellent Experience Life article (which I shall be plagiarizing from even more extensively below):

"Our research showed that replacing as little as 2 to 3 percent of overall training with unstable-surface training in healthy, trained athletes impaired the development of sprinting speed and vertical jump height.... Grass and turf fields do not move, nor do tracks or basketball and tennis courts... We can’t train slowly on an unstable surface and expect to be fast and powerful on a stable surface.”

Another Unstable Surface Training article explains a tradeoff that occurs when stability varies. If you're doing a stable exercise, like using a leg press machine, you can really beef up your "prime mover" activation and can generate a lot more power in your major muscles than you can when you're doing an unstable exercise, like a one-legged squat on a bosu ball. On the other hand, the scary unstable kind of exercise uses a lot of stabilizer activation, so you're more likely to hit those little muscles that keep you from toppling over in an undignified manner.

Bottom line: if you want to sprint really fast down the track, or jump really high, or look more like this dude...

 photo: posedown

... then you may not want to spend a big chunk of your workout on a wobble board.

However, if you're trying to get better at an exercise that actually involves an unstable surface, then for goodness sake, go ahead and train on one!

Photo: Petsfoto

Injuries and Unstable Surface Training

If you're teetering around challenging your balance by working out on something wobbly, there's always the chance you could go sprawling ass over teakettle and seriously hurt yourself.  On the other hand, as physical therapists or purveyors of UST exercise equipment will happily point out, doing stability exercises can be a helpful way to challenge core muscles, prevent injuries and do some rehab after you've gone out and messed something up.

Your most useful accessory when approaching exercise on unstable surfaces? Common sense!

Balance and Stability Challenges On Solid Ground

Cribbing from the aforementioned Experience Life article, there are a number ways to get some of the benefits of instability training without wandering into controversial UST territory. As it happens, these are all things I've randomly started doing myself for one reason or another, so of course it makes me even more convinced that the Experience Life people are brilliant! Anyway, these can include:

Exercising with your eyes closed. (And yep, I do part of my cardio on the elliptical this way, without holding onto anything, and one day I will probably kill myself. But what the hell, in the meantime it's pretty darn fun.)

Strength training that involves balancing on one leg. If you're hardcore, sure, do pistol squats like Charlotte, but I find even lunges (especially backwards walking lunges) to be plenty challenging for my meager balancing ability.  If a good part of the move involves putting all your weight on one leg, then chances are, you're going to have to work a bit to keep from keeling over into an awkward heap in front of that personal trainer you've been eyeing who keeps tempting you with his cute bosu balls.

Moving your center of gravity up and out. You can do this by raising your arms or hoisting weights above your head. Kettlebell swinging, medicine balls, and using dumbbells for things like the evil Turkish get-up or the one-handed overhead squat are some handy ways to shift your center of gravity around to destabilize yourself.

And finally:

Using uneven loads.  Hmm, like the shovelglove? Or, well, DIY sandbags? It seems we've come full circle!


Do any of you guy incorporate stability training in your exercise program? Or is getting out of bed and making your way to the kitchen without tripping over the cat good enough?

Elliptical Madness, Losing Your Nipples, and Barbell Babies

Not that pasties don't make a cute nipple alternative...

Photo: Godzilla Rocket

Yep, it's that time again, when the weekend's almost here and attention spans are short. Who wants to read a long blog post all about one subject, anyway? Actually, the more relevant question is: who wants to write one?  And the answer: Not me!

So, for those with short attention spans, you can find out what odd experiment has Crabby been undertaking at the gym, discover stuff to avoid if you want to keep your nipples from falling off, and learn where you can get instructions for turning your baby into a barbell, as well as catch up on other miscellaneous health and fitness news you might have missed.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't yet checked out the Kuru Shoe Review and Giveaway and want a chance to win a nifty pair of Chukkas, hustle on over there and add a comment!

Around the Web:

Want to know what the latest trends in weight loss are, from the sensible to the super-stupid? Charlotte has a nifty slideshow round-up over at Shape.

Find out a simple (and free) trick to boost the growth of your house plants at Living Healthy in the Real World.

An alternative to coffee? That's heresy! But if you're the DIY type and want to roast your own, Leah has the how-to's of roasting your own coffee alternative over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.

Curious about a FitBit for a possible holiday gift (or to snag one for yourself)? Check out the comprehensive (and amusing) FitBit review by Sinner Ella De'Ville, who won one here and was kind enough to share her thoughts, pictures and ratings.

Crabby's Wild Experiment! Want to Try One Too?

So if you, like me, have already started sliding a bit down the slippery slope of holiday-related overindulgence and slackitude, it might be tempting to give in to negative thinking.

"Darn it," you may say, (or, if you're like me and have no manners, then "F@#ck it,")... "I already screwed up big time, so what the heck, I'll just enjoy the holidays and get back to that healthy lifestyle thing come January 1st."

Whatever! No judgments here. If you insist, go right ahead and undo as much of the hard work you've done all year as you can in the next few frenzied weeks.

But while you're at it, how about trying one or two healthy new experiments? It's a proven fact, or else something I just made up, that a little bit of positive progress can help you recapture your forsaken identity as a Motivated and Resourceful Health Fiend.

I've been trying a bunch of new things lately, which may end up being posts in themselves at some point. But I'll go ahead and share the most insane one of them now:

Four Minute Elliptical Triple-Tasking!

So, I have really sucky balance, but never seem to spend time working on balance training.  Another thing I frequently skip? Exercise cool-downs! I know I'm supposed to do 'em, but it's so much more tempting to go full blast and then jump off my machine and pretend sauntering to the locker room constitutes a proper post aerobic transistion.  And the most shunned self-improvement task of all?  That has to be my frequent promises to myself to spend at least a few minutes every day doing some sort of mindfulness and/or meditation and/or focusing.

A quick answer to all of this slacking? I now perform the last song on my elliptical playlist with my Eyes Closed. (And no holding on to anything either).

I started off doing just four beats at a time, then built gradually up to fairly continuous eye closure.  In order to keep from flying off the machine and wounding innocent passers-by, I have to concentrate on a focal point.  (I chose my pelvic floor muscles, because I need to work on locating 'em anyway for post-hysterectomy PT exercises. TMI? Er, sorry! Feel free to find your own G-rated focal point.)  But anyway, as soon as my thoughts stray, I get wobblier and wobblier. The real-time bonus of not catapulting off the machine is a great incentive to return to my focus before I accidentally kill myself. And all the while I'm getting a nice cool down before I hit the locker room. 

Note: Should you try this too?  No, 'cause I don't want you to sue me! It's an incredibly stupid idea and may cause injuries. Do not try to suddenly add extended periods of eye closure to your regular exercise routine, particularly if you are a cyclist or downhill ski racer. However, you may want to think about trying something new, is all I'm sayin!

And now, for the laziest portion of our round-up:

Stuff Copied from Crabby's Twitter Stream:

Study says simpler diets easier to stick to.  Hmm, mine has a million exceptions (aka excuses) but works ok for me.


Several studies warned against multivitamins so I stopped. Now new study says they may fight memory decline.  #researchsucks

Fight brain tumors, MS, etc: Research says curry and other spices have kick-ass neuro-protective effects.

Creepy: "Smokers Risk Losing Nipples With Breast Lift." Seriously: they could FALL OFF. Smoking + Considering Breast Lift?  = Think Hard.

Study: upping fiber more crucial than nixing saturated fat to avoid metabolic syndrome. Thus the rise of bacon kettlecorn?

Felons! Barbell-babies! Awesome. Weirdest fitness books that actually have good advice.

Why? No one to share the candy with? Women who live alone are 2.5 times more likely to get diabetes:

Do your kids drink a ton of apple and grape juice? Bad idea anyway (high sugar!) but now you can worry about arsenic too!

Not quite the way I wanna get my RDA of minerals: Craisins recalled over metal fragments.

150 minutes a week of exercise helps sleep.  Now could someone tell that to my freakin hot flashes? #menopause #sucks

Great! Now can you get 'em to cook it for me? 5 Sites for Shopping Local Food Online.

Coffee linked to lower risk of endometrial cancer.  Coffee also linked to Crabby being able to function.

Study: "Walking through doorway promotes forgetting." So does being 50+! Put 'em together and lose all hope.

Calcium plus probiotics may help lower bad cholesterol:  Hmm... an excuse to go visit Pinkberry for dessert?


So how's everyone doing with the holidays coming up? Superhero? Slacker? Trying anything new on the life of fitness front?

Fitting in Fitness

Photo credit? Whoops. Forgot where I found it.

Are you a professional athlete? A circus performer? Or perhaps a reality-show contestant being tortured and humiliated trained and motivated to inspire a national TV audience with your astounding weight loss and newly-muscled physique?

Nope? Well, no big surprise there. Oddly enough, neither pro athletes nor famous people of any sort tend to hang out at Cranky Fitness. Go figure! But this post is not for them anyway.

How do normal folks find time to get enough exercise?

And sorry, Cranky Fitness regulars--as it happens, it's a subject that comes up for a lot of coaching clients. So please don't get too disoriented should you decide to... 

Sigh heavily, lift your finger from its comfortable resting place, and click over to the Life Coaching site to read the damn post.