Episode 116 – Improve Your Balance in 3 Easy Phases
Posted on May 18, 2016
On The heels of the injury show I thought it would be a good idea to talk about balance, since one of the biggest reasons people injure themselves is through some form of falling, whether it’s slipping on a wet surface, tripping over an uneven walkway or falling off a stool, all of these things can be prevented or at the very least the seriousness of them can be significantly reduced with proper balance and strength training. When most people think of balance they think of standing on 1 foot, which you can do and it will improve your balance, except there’s more to it than that, because very rarely are you just standing on 1 foot when you fall. I mean when was the last time you said to yourself, ‘hmmmm, I’m going to do this activity on one foot because that will make it easier.’ The short answer is never, so standing on one foot can’t be the only way you practice your balance. Usually you’re moving or reaching which puts you in a precarious or awkward position that ultimately leads to a fall. Luckily you can train for that moment, so here we go.
There are actually three components to balance which include your ability to stay in a single position, your ability to move and maintain balance and then your ability to catch yourself if you do or are about to fall.
The first thing we should cover is your ability to stand upright in a stationary position, this could be standing on 1 or 2 feet. Usually when people think of balance they think of their ability to stand on 1 foot. But it’s not uncommon for you to have a different stance where your feet are spread wide apart or staggered in a long way, think about the last time you had to reach to pick something up that fell under a table or you had to step over a heavy box in your basement to reach for something on the top shelf. Both of these would require good balance while standing on 2 feet. So you need to practice both balancing on one and 2 feet.
Once you’ve mastered standing on one foot you can make it harder by closing your eyes or doing different kinds of exercises on one foot to help improve your balance, but a better way is to specifically do exercises that force you to use your glute and glute med, these are your bum muscles and the muscles on the outside of your hips. This could be a single leg squat pushing your hip into a stability ball against the wall, it could be a single leg Romanian Deadlift or it could be a split squat with a staggered stance. Anything that puts you in a slightly off-balance position where you’re forced to use your glutes and your legs to do the exercise can significantly help you with your balance.
I don’t usually recommend for most people to use a balance board or an unstable surface, when you’re lifting weights, specifically because most people aren’t strong enough to be able to do an exercise on unstable surface properly, which would increase your chance of becoming injured, also when you shift to an unstable surface you won’t be able to lift as much weight, which would be fine sometimes, but you won’t get to failure the same way, which means you won’t necessarily get as much muscle development.
You can try it, but you have to master balance on stable surfaces first.
The next part of balance is your ability to move and stay balanced at the same time. Most people don’t think of balance this way, but it’s actually really important. Especially if you’re someone that likes to play recreational sports or someone that walks on uneven surfaces, which is everyone that walks outside. Once you’ve mastered or at least have a really good grip on the stationary balance exercises you can start doing balance exercises while you’re moving. Examples of these would be single leg side to side jumps and scissor jumps, practising a soft landing by bending your knees will help you maintain your balance, if that’s too aggressive of an exercise you can practice by doing agility drills where you’re running around cones and changing directions often, anything where you’re moving, pivoting and changing direction relatively quickly are good things that you can do to help improve your balance and if that’s still too aggressive or challenging start by doing walking lunge variations, because sometimes they can be hard enough.
The last component of balance is your ability to catch yourself if you do or are about to fall. The problem with falling is that it usually happens really quickly without any sort of notice, which means you need to be able to react very quickly to be able to catch yourself. This means that once you’ve mastered both stationary balance and moving balance on one and two legs you can practice reactionary balance. This means not only having good overall fitness, but also putting yourself in positions where you’re forced to react quickly to catch yourself. This can be done by stepping off a low step and then catching yourself into a squat or jumping into the air and landing on 1 foot. Simple exercises like this can really help your balance, also doing strength training for your legs like squats, split squats and lunges can help make sure your legs are strong enough to hold yourself when you’re forced to react quickly.
To recap, practicing your balance should start in stationary positions like standing on 1 or 2 feet and doing exercises like split squats or single leg squats with the stability ball against the wall, anything that involves your glutes, hips and your quads. Then move towards movement exercises like lunges and lateral jumps to strengthen your legs and force you to hold your balance after moving. Then to catch yourself from falling, keep doing your leg exercises and if you’re feeling advanced or adventurous enough you can do the reactionary exercises like stepping of a low step and quickly catching yourself. All this will help you maintain your balance as you get older and make you the strongest version of yourself.
