You already know this but I’m going to say it so that we have all acknowledged the sizable pachyderm with us:
Cycling leaves a lot of our stabilizer muscles weak. It sucks. It doubly sucks because I don’t really love hiking. It’s okay, but seriously, bikes, way better, amiright?
Truthfully, I don’t really notice the loss of strength in hiking. My ankles feel pretty stable, but when skate skiing? Yeah, I can’t balance on one foot for as long as I used to. And that’s a problem big enough that I’m willing to address it.
Which brings me to the Gibbon Slackboard Plus. The “Plus” designation is because it has two slacklines, not one. You’ve probably seen these advertised on social media (Or is that only because I researched them?), and I have to say, I didn’t give them any thought at first. They seemed, well, gimicky. But that’s because I was looking through the wrong lens. As an accessory to prove your hippie bonafides, uh, no. As a way to work on balance and ankle stabilizer muscles (feet muscles, too), this thing is the bomb.
I went with the Plus because I knew it would be easier for me to do small corrections with a second stretch of webbing, and I’m better off dabbing occasionally than stepping down and stepping back up. But if I get to the point where I want the extra challenge? Well, it’s easy to remove both straps and then run one of them through the middle slot. Convertible, yo.
There’s not much to the Slackboard. It’s a lot like a skateboard deck, though it flexes notably more. The webbing seems reasonably taut—until you stand on it. A couple of wood dowels keep the webbing in place. The decks come with all sorts of different designs should you want to match it to your decor … or personality.
Single Gibbon Slackboards start at $149.99 and top out at $187.49 for the top-of-the-line double. It’s not exactly small, at 42 in. x 11 in. x 5.5 in., but it stows easily in a closet. I think it would fit under my bed … were it not for all the stuff already under it.
I’ve been playing training with mine since February. I only spend three or four minutes on it at a time, generally. I don’t try to watch The Pitt while standing on it. After all, my purpose isn’t to develop the balance of a yoga teacher. I simply want to be able to balance better on one foot and to transfer my weight more efficiently. That I can spend five minutes with it and then toss it in a closet crosses some previously unsurveyed threshold of usability. Can’t say how or why, but this works for me. I’m on it daily, when I’m home.
Final thought: I suppose this is going to help my standup paddle boarding, too, huh?