Get On It! – by Jane Aronovitch, Miriane Taylor, & Colleen Craig

Balance is important; without it, we die early. That’s quite a strong selling point for improving one’s balance, but why this book in particular?

This is—with one drawback—the best book of balance ball exercises we’ve seen. Notwithstanding the cover photo, many exercises do, by the way, involve standing on it with one or both feet, doing various kinds of squats, lunges, get-ups, and so forth. The ball (it’s not really a ball so much as an oblate hemisphere) can also be flipped and used the other way around, with a flat platform that will now wobble per your weight distribution, and train balance in different ways (dome-up trains large stabilizing muscles more; platform-up trains smaller stabilizing muscles more).

Indeed, that’s where the brand name Bosu, often stylized “BOSU”, comes from: both sides up!

So, what’s the drawback? Alas, the photos are black and white, which means in some cases they’re not as clear as they could be. Nothing that will prevent understanding the exercises, which are well-explained in any case, but it does mean that sometimes it’s necessary to look closely to see which leg is in front of the other for a given exercise, for example.

Still, with 80 different exercises it really does cover the whole body, and even gives workout program varieties for those who want that, including targeted to particular areas, e.g. lower body, core, upper body, or complete.

Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your balance (and have, or are willing to acquire, a balance ball like the Bosu), then this book will give you everything else you need in that regard.

Click here to check out Get On It!, and get on it!