Gliding is a wonderful way to challenge your body in a whole new way. Around for a few years now, there are still more people that have never heard of Gliding than there are “Gliding Afficionados” which allows us, the Group Exercise Instructors and Personal Trainers of the world to bring something new and exciting to our fitness facilities and gyms.
 
What is Gliding for Group Exercise?

Gliding is done on one or two discs on a hard surface or carpeting for an equally impressive exercise session. You can add small segments on the discs to your already existing classes such as kickboxing – jab, jab, slide or slide three, side kick one; yoga – glide through a sun salutation or add them to your personal training sessions for strength or cardio enhancing. Basically, by adding Gliding to your classes, you are adding creativity and innovation to what are possibly already exciting experiences. If you feel super adept at using the Gliders, never to be confused with “sliding,” you can perform an entire hour of the moves but be warned, it is  not easy to be creative enough for weekly, changing workouts.

What are the Benefits of Gliding for Group Exercise?

Gliding has several benefits, besides breaking the mundane routine you may be stuck in. Muscles are challenged in a new way which help to break fitness plateaus and creates muscle confusion. By adding an unstable surface your workouts, you are increasing range of motion, balance muscle recruitment and increasing muscular activation of the movers and stabilizers. By activating the stabilizers you are most certainly affecting the core and as we all know, today's buzz word is “core” and much of our training efforts go into strengthening that very important region.

Best of all, Glide discs  are super affordable and can be stored in the smallest of areas. This is one toy you definitely want to add to your fitness tool box as a trainer and any group exercise department would be silly not to have them.

How Do You Incorporate Gliding Into Group Exercise?

When you start Gliding, you may want to start by having a sturdy, stable object nearby to help you feel secure. Slowly practice mounting and dismounting, beginning with just one disc and then adding the other. As you improve begin to add range of motion, making your movements bigger and bigger, you can also add speed, rotation, flexion, extension, toys (weights, tubing, bars, balls, etc) as well as tricky choreography.
You will work both the anaerobic and aerobic systems depending on which exercises you are doing – a series of quick lunges followed by glider burpees will increase the heart rate to beyond your training zone while slow and controlled push ups or squats will keep you breathing in your aerobic zone.  Focus on strength as well as endurance improvements with one simple tool.

Some of the Different Body Positions You Can Use Gliders for Group Exercise is:

•    Seated/Supine Foot Position
•    Heel of foot on center of disc
•    Ball of foot extended off of disc with toes extended
•    Standing Foot Position
•    Ball of foot on center of disc
•    Heel is extended off disc
•    Hand centered on disc

Some exercises to start you creativity are:

•    Squat – Stationary and Moving
•    Slide Side to Side
•    Lunge – Side, Back, Curtsy
•    Lunge – Circle, Double, Combos
•    Skate
•    Ski
•    Warrior
•    Triceps Dip with Leg Ext
•    Leg Swing With Hip Lift
•    Leg Swing
•    Ab Curl with Disc Under Feet
•    Basic, oblique
•    Ab Curl with Palms on Disc
•    Snow Angel
•    Back Extension
•    Extended Slide Out and Back
•    Thread the Needle
•    Push Up  
•    Roadrunner

Have fun and be safe!