AIREX Home Gym Physical Therapy Workout Yoga Exercise Foam Non Slip Balance Pad with Waterproof and Tear Proof Design for Strength Training, Blue

Most of the reviews here are from people with balance problems, or rehabbing serious injuries. I’m not in that category; I do have some joint problems, and have had some PT, but I’m working out again and I see this as a piece of equipment that serious athletes, or anyone, can benefit from, not just patients. I’m using it to work my foot, leg and core muscles, not so much for balance per se, although it certainly benefits that as well.There are a lot of different things you can do with this thing, including using it as a zafu (like a meditation cushion); it’s seriously excellent for that. However, the only thing I’ve used it for much, so far, is standing on it on one foot. When I got it, about a week and a half ago I guess, if my life depended on standing on one foot on this thing for 30 seconds, I’d be dead. Now, I think I’d have an even chance of surviving. I’ve done a lot of tai chi, and I’ve been working with Eric Orton’s Born to Run system (which I highly recommend), so I was already pretty good at standing on one foot, but now, in this short time, I’m actually much better at standing on one foot, on any surface.When standing on the Airex, I’m making a lot of movements, working all sorts of muscles; everything in the standing leg and foot, and often the core and torso as well, until I finally fall off.Before, if I stood on one foot on the floor, there would be a very tiny version of this going on, continual slight adjustments; I had to concentrate on it. Now, I guess I could say the same; there still must be small adjustments, but they’re even much smaller than before, so it feels rock solid. Put it this way: standing on one foot now feels almost like standing on two feet; I could stand that way a while and not be aware I was doing it. That’s a pretty amazing improvement for less than two weeks, and I just do it probably a total of ten minutes a day; I just step on the thing every once in a while when I’m home, fall off a couple of times with each foot, and go do something else. I haven’t kept track, but my mean-time-to-falling-off has probably gone from 10 seconds to 20 seconds, something like that (and of course, “falling off” just means having to put the other foot down on the floor; there’s no danger). Sometimes I do leg swings, lateral leg raises, hydrants, with the free leg, or go down into (very slight) one-legged squats, or “airborne lunges” (kind of the opposite of a pistol squat, free leg out behind, trunk and arms in front); it doesn’t seem to make the mere standing much harder. It’s like, while I’m standing there, I can do some exercises, until I start to fall off, which is going to happen anyway. In the future, I can imagine being able to stand there until I’m ready to get off of my own volition.It is a bit pricey, of course, but I’ve found it to be extremely valuable, well worth it. It gives me a type of workout I can’t get any other way. I also use Eric Orton’s stuff, which I highly recommend, and I do things like ipsilateral bird dogs, so the Airex isn’t absolutely unique, but it’s unique enough, and complements those other things very well.