Workout Tips: Kooza and Core

I went to watch Cirque Du Soleil's Kooza show tonight and I'm amazed at how strong these men and women are who perform in these shows.  The third act was a man riding a unicycle while maneuvering a 90lb woman over his head and cycling in a circle.  This got me thinking about how important core training is. 

Your core is like the trunk of the tree, it's the base on which every movement draws from, controls your balance and protects your spine.  So try to engage your core in as many exercises as possible. 

You can do this with a multitude of tools, including a bosu ball, exercise ball or a medicine ball.  Basically, anything that requires you to balance your body without physically supporting your core.  The next time you have a workout, try replacing the flat bench with an exercise ball, squat and lunge on a bosu ball instead of the floor, try pushups off a medicine ball or even do shoulder presses on one foot.

You can easily adjust your existing workout to engage more of your core.  All you need is to add the element of balance into the exercises.