Can Exercise Help Prevent Falls? Reasons for Balance Training.

Have you ever gone hiking, tripped on your ankle and though “Whew! That was a close one”? Loosing balance is not an uncommon occurrence. While at times it may pose as a mere inconvenience it can also lead to more serious injuries such as spraining an ankle, twisting a knee, falling on the hip, and fracturing a hand or wrist as you break your fall. 

Don’t you just wish you were a cat, able to always land on your feet no matter what fall you take?

Well good news is there are some great exercises and types of training you can do to cultivate those cat-fast reactions for fall prevention.

Welcome to the wonderful world of balance training, your one stop shop to feline reflexes, optimal performance, and fall prevention. 

The following are a progressive selection of training exercises that can increasingly challenge and improve balance. 

The most common exercise for balance training is the classic one leg standing pose or lifting one foot off the ground and holding the pose. As common and simple as this exercise may seem, for many it can be a deceptively challenging exercise.

However it has a host of benefits, such as helping to strengthen the foot, ankle, lower leg, and improve balance mechanics.

An even more simple variation of this exercise is the “tight rope” pose, as the name suggests, placing one foot in front of the other foot as if standing still atop a tight rope.

To make the tight rope pose more challenging you can try gazing up at the sky or closing your eyes. 

Eyes, Ears, and Balance

When we disorient our vision, such as looking up at the sky, it throws off our balance. Our eyes and gaze plays a central role in our balance. Interestingly, in addition to our neuromuscular proprioceptive system and vision, another sensory organ that factors into the balance equation are the ears.

In fact, the ears are one of the most important aspects of our balance; the “inner ear” which is one of the deepest regions of the ear is the center of our “vestibular system” which is the primary mechanism for balancing.

If you’ve ever had one ear that’s been blocked up, you know how disorienting it can be. 

As such, there are many aspects that make up our ability to balance. When it comes to balance training, as mentioned, you can use this to your advantage to introduce additional levels of difficulty.

You can distort your vision or close your eyes to challenge the exercise. Another way that you can challenge your balance practice is by including arm movements.

For example, say you are balancing on one leg, you can reach one arm forward as if you were shaking someones hand and then pull the hand back.

Then you can try it on the other arm.

You can try other arm variations such as side reaches or overhead reaches.

The arm reaching movements force the lower body to find an even stronger sense of balance as you challenge the torso’s position in space.

Adding light weights to you hands can add further challenge to the balance training. 

As you become adept at these exercise you can move onward and try out the “tight rope walk”, walking on a straight line, one foot stepping in front of the other.

Afterwards you can reverse the direction and try walking backwards. While this exercise may appear simple, this one can also be challenging and ripe with benefits.

It can help strengthen the foot, ankle, lower leg, and balance, with the added benefit of being a more “functional” exercise since your lower body is engaged in motion unlike the single leg standing exercise.  

Unstable Surfaces

As you progress further and are ready for greater challenge you can add unstable surfaces to practice your balance exercises on.

Foam pads, balance boards, or either side of half a foam roller are wonderful tools to experiment with. These unstable surfaces will help you develop new levels of stability and balance.  

Functional Movements

The penultimate stage is incorporating functional and dynamic movements like a forward stepping lunge to a knee lift balancing on one leg or a side lunge to a standing knee lift balancing on one leg. These can help teach you to maintain your balance through multi-joint movements in multiple planes of space.

Single leg hops forward or backward are also great higher level exercises for balance.

As mentioned prior, you can always add unstable surfaces to these movements to introduce a more challenging version. 

Lastly, you can also pick up activities, sports, or forms of movement that involve a variety of body positioning and require balance such as tennis, gymnastics, slacklining, surfing, dance, yoga, and tai chi. 

Conclusion

Beyond preventing falls and injury, balance training is a wonderful practice to optimize your ability to move and perform at a high athletic level.

As discussed, there are many types of exercises you can practice to help you improve your balance and develop that cat like agility.

Enjoy exploring balance in the gym or on the mat and may that balance cross over into the rest of your life!

For any questions regarding balance training contact me at KaiBodyMindWellness.com.

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