This is hardly a new idea as water filled balls have been used for decades now. Paul Wright often fills his Swiss Balls half full with Water then does walking lunges whilst jiggling the ball about all over the place.
A reasonable enough idea perhaps if you have plenty of spare Swiss Balls!
I would like a piece of equipment that tells me when I left lost neutral spinal curves when doing ball roll out and the like.

I'm liking the swiss ball idea, I shall google Paul Wright and see what its saying, do you know any particular websites that display the exercises?

Have you looked at pressure biofeedback units? They can monitor your ability to hold neutral spine, admitidly you need to be on the floor or table or whatever; however there is range of exercises you can use to hit various areas around the body with them. Once your confident with the unit you will have a much better kinasthetic awareness during other exercises.

I believe a reasonable priced version is available from www.physio-supplies.com(.co.uk?) for around £40. Although not really suitable for clinical or athlete use, the unit will give you an insight to if you like training style before you invest in the more accurate version (i think around £100).

Dan

Hi

Allen Hedrick Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the United States Air Force Academy uses barrels filled with water.

He claims training with a fluid resistance provides a more sport-specific method of training as compared to lifting with static resistance. This is because during contact sports athletes encouter dynamic resistance in the form of an opponent as opposed to static resistance. Additionally it is proposed the fluid resistance enhances the need for stability and control, which may reduce the potential of injury because of improved joint stability.

Any thoughts?

Alan.

I have just started to use sand bag training as an alternative mehod of training but dont use it as the sole training medium.

I saw Allen Hedrick's article too in the NSCA journal couple of months back - was an interesting read and agree with the statements made. But again I dont believe this should be the sole training medium. Strength are always limited by stability so this type of training alone would not necessarily be the best type of training even for contact sports (but does have an important place).

Also look at Zach Evan-Esh site http://www.undergroundstrengthcoach.com/

There are many varying ways to train on his site - used of sledge hammers on to typres, tyre flipping etc. There is some great stuff if used realistically and practically within a session