The back porch steps at our house outside Wilkes-Barre have a rail on the left and open air on the right. For years I came down them carrying a bucket of potatoes and never thought about it. Then at 64 I caught my heel on the lip of the top step, grabbed for the rail and missed, and stood there a minute with my heart going. My doctor checked me over and said my heart was fine. My legs and my balance were the problem. That was the start of all this, and the foam pad I bought about three years ago is the piece I still use most mornings.
What I wanted was not a machine. I wanted something I could stand on for a few minutes in the spare bedroom with one hand on the dresser, something that would make my feet and ankles do the work they had stopped doing. The ProsourceFit exercise balance pad is that. It is a foam pad, 15.5 inches long, 12.75 inches wide and 2.25 inches thick, and it weighs 12 ounces. You set it on the floor and you stand on it. That is the whole idea. Here are ten reasons it has stayed in that room while other things got shoved into the closet.
Ten reasons, one pad, one hand on the dresser
The ProsourceFit balance pad is 15.5 by 12.75 inches and 2.25 inches thick. It lives flat on the floor and costs you sixty seconds a morning.
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It makes the floor move under you without a motor
Standing on foam is not the same as standing on hardwood. The pad gives a little in whatever direction you lean, and your feet spend the whole time making small corrections to keep you upright. That is the entire point. I do not strap anything on, plug anything in or memorize a routine. I stand there with a hand on the dresser, count slowly to sixty and step off. At 2.25 inches thick it gives enough to feel and not so much that I feel like I am on a boat.
You can keep one hand on something solid the whole time
The reason I never went down while learning this is that I never once stood on it unsupported. The spare bedroom has a low dresser on one wall and the pad sits right beside it. My right hand stays on the top edge. If my ankle wobbles, I stop the wobble with my arm instead of with a stumble. Over a few weeks I noticed I was using that hand less, not because I decided to be brave, but because I stopped needing it. I still keep it there. A stiff right knee means I am not interested in proving anything to anybody.
It wakes up the small muscles in your feet and ankles
Nobody tells you that balance lives down in your ankles. Mine had gone lazy from thirty-one years of sitting in a mail truck and then from sitting more once I retired. On the floor my feet did nothing all day. On the pad they work for the full minute. It is not a workout you would brag about. It is a quiet, dull, useful thing, like flossing. After about six weeks I could stand at the kitchen sink and reach the top shelf without putting a hand on the counter first.
It doubles as a garden kneeler, which is my favorite use
I bought it for balance. I use it most in the garden. Behind the house I have a big patch of potatoes, carrots, beets and squash, and kneeling on the dirt to pull them used to leave my knees aching for two days. The pad goes down on the ground, I kneel on it, and the ache is much less. At 15.5 by 12.75 inches it is big enough for both knees if I keep them together. When I am done I pick it up, shake it off and carry it inside. It has been muddy more times than I can count.
It is thin enough to live by the dresser, so you will actually use it
Every piece of exercise equipment I have ever quit came down to one thing. It was a nuisance to get out. The pad is 12 ounces and 2.25 inches thick, so it sits flat on the floor next to the dresser and I walk past it every single morning. When I want it, I bend down, put a foot on it and go. That is the whole setup. If it had lived in a closet behind the vacuum cleaner, I would have used it four times and then quit, and we both know it.
Three winters on, the pad is still flat by the dresser and I still stand on it. That is more than I can say for the treadmill my neighbor gave me.
Bare feet stay put, even when your hands get sweaty
The surface is a rubbery foam and it grips. The listing calls the material TPE and says it is sweat proof and slip resistant, which matches what my feet tell me. I use it in socks in the winter and barefoot in the summer, and neither one slides. That matters more than it sounds. The first time I ever stepped on a wobble board at a neighbor's house, my foot shot off the edge and I nearly went into his workbench. This pad has never done that to me.
It makes the exercises you already do harder without adding weight
I do the same few things I have done for years. Sit to stands from the kitchen chair. Side leg lifts with the ankle weights. A few slow squats holding the dresser. Put the pad under your feet for the sit to stands and they get harder without a single extra pound. Same with standing on it during a set of side leg lifts. My knee does not want more weight. It can handle more wobble. That is the trade I am making at 68.
Joan can use it without changing a single thing
My wife Joan is 66 and joins me some mornings. There is no adjustment to make, no setting to change and nothing to learn. She stands on it, holds the dresser and does her minute. She goes barefoot in the summer and says it feels good under her arches. We have never once argued about whose turn it is, which is more than I can say for the television. One pad, two people, no fuss, and it goes back on the floor where it was.
It has held up for three winters of mornings
I bought it the first winter after the resistance bands, so about three years ago. It has been stood on most mornings, kneeled on all summer, dropped, wiped with a damp rag and left by the dresser. The ProsourceFit pad has not cracked, torn or gone flat. There is a limited lifetime warranty on it, which I have never had to test. I cannot tell you it will last forever. I can tell you mine has outlasted two pairs of garden gloves and a hose.
It moves from the bedroom to the back porch with one hand
In good weather I take it outside. It weighs 12 ounces, so I carry it in one hand with my coffee in the other. It goes down on the porch boards and I do my minute out there with a hand on the post, listening to the birds and feeling like I am getting away with something. In the winter it goes back beside the dresser. No assembly, no batteries and no floor space lost. For a man who cleared out a spare bedroom to have somewhere to move, that is the right amount of equipment.
What I'd Skip
What I would skip is the wobble board. A neighbor has one, it is a plank on a pivot, and it is a fine tool for a young person with good ankles. It is not for me. I got on it once, felt how fast it moved and got off. I would also skip standing on the pad with both eyes closed, or on one leg without a hand on something solid. That is showing off, not training. If you want steadier feet, keep a hand on the dresser and be bored for sixty seconds. Boring is what has worked for me.
I would also be honest about what a pad will not do. It will not fix a bad knee. Mine still aches on wet days and probably always will. It will not replace a physical therapist, and if you have had a fall or you are unsure of your footing, go see one before you buy anything at all. My doctor is the one who told me my legs were the problem, and Karen, who is a nurse and lives two hours away, is the one who told me to stop carrying buckets down the steps. The pad is a small tool that helps me do what they told me to do. No more than that.
Start with one minute and a hand on something solid
A foam pad by a dresser and sixty slow seconds a morning is where this started for me. Check with your doctor or a physical therapist first, then give it a winter.
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