Though it might not cross your mind, you need good balance to do just about everything, including walking, getting out of a chair, and leaning over to tie your shoes. Strong muscles and being able to keep yourself steady make all the difference in those and many other things you do every day. Balance training involves doing exercises that strengthen the muscles that help keep you upright, including your legs and core. These kinds of exercises can improve stability and help prevent falls.
“I have poor balance”, these words I hear often from women, especially when asking them to do a balance exercise.
Usually, every time I see her executing the exercise her balance is way better than she thinks. (I think generally us women under sell our own abilities).
Balance exercises go further than just about standing on one leg.
I believe we need to spend time in positions that make us unstable to know what it feels like, build confidence and trust in your own body.
Working on balance doesn’t have a “sexy” ring to it like strength or cardiovascular training has.
Fundamentally as we age our risk of falls increases
Once you have a fall your risk factor of having a subsequent fall significantly increases. Which then results in you doing less to reduce your likelihood of having additional falls leading you into a vicious cycle of reduced movement and quality of life.
Some of the factors that increase fall risk are:
- Decreased Strength
- Decreased postural stability & sense of balance
- Altered gait patterns
- Declining eyesight
- Loss of hearing
- Loss of mobility
- Decreased reaction times
You’ve probably noticed that these factors are also associated with aging. But you have the power to slow some of the decline down, therefore slowing down these risk factors by creating a space to build confidence in your body and having great body awareness so you can move around safely and feel safe. Starting with including strengthening exercises into your weekly movement schedule is going to help support posture and slow down the decline through loss of mobility. It’s also great to add balance training, where you want to increase your awareness of how your body moves through space. If you have low confidence with your balance right now a great place to start is static balance.
Give these single leg balance drills a go.
Most falls don’t happen when you’re standing on one leg. Usually it’s when you trip or look in a different direction. This is why you don’t want to limit your balance training to only single leg balance drills.
Stutter step drills are a great dynamic drill, where you’re practicing catching yourself following a trip.
Key points:
- Safety is #1 priority start at the level that’s right for you. (if you need to hold onto a solid structure, please do this).
- Balance is about being able to move your body through space.
- Include balance exercises with your strengthening exercises.
Balance training can be fun, get creative.
Let’s get balance confident again.
With Love!
