The ability to maintain our body’s balance throughout our everyday life activities is critically important to our productivity and functionality. Deconditioned fitness levels, recovering from a significant surgery, or the general advancement of age play a role in creating unbalanced environments. Standing up from seated or lying down positions, correcting our walking path if we need to suddenly move out of the way of a moving object, or the muscular strength and coordination of our core and lower extremities affect balance. Finding exercises to practice and reinforce the ability to stay balanced in circumstances that offer presentations of imbalance are vital assets to the general population’s fitness routine.
As we age, the general degradation of muscle and connective tissue occurs. The healing process of our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones isn’t as profound as that of a sixteen-year-old multisport athlete. However, it’s useful to note that as adults progress past their high school and college athletic careers, physical activity levels decrease due to the necessity of working a forty-hour work week, entering a business partnership, or getting married and starting a family. Needless to say, physical activity and adherence to fitness routines are shunted due to the maturation of the average human in our society. So, when it comes to degeneration of muscle strength and size over time, what comes first? Getting older? Or, we simply get complacent and stop engaging in recreational physical activity and exercise before the obligations of life take over?
Unless we’re Marty McFly driving a masterfully polished stainless steel DeLorean that can travel back in time, we can’t do much about adding another year onto our age after each time the Earth takes a trip around the sun. However, the human body has a unique ability to adapt to specific adaptations that are imposed on it. In other words, if the body is put through a period of rigorous work, muscles receive a series of microscopic tears in them. Better known to the gym rat world as “a case of the DOMS,” or delayed onset muscle soreness, our body feels a slight sensation of pain a few days following a resistance training session. As muscles heal and adapt after a resistance training session, the body becomes stronger in being able to manipulate objects in the environment more efficiently due to an increase in neuromuscular coordination and muscular strength. Additionally, the ability to move fluidly in multiple positions while walking, stepping up and down stairs, turning around, or standing up is improved from this adaptation of muscle building.
Understanding exercise techniques that reinforce our ability to change direction immediately, regain balance after an immediate adjustment of stumbling, or avoid falling improves balance. More importantly, consistently practicing training exercises that reinforce the mastery of balance is critically important to possessing optimal balance to decrease the risk of falling, avoid injury, and ultimately increase confidence through movement as we age. Therefore balance training should be practiced regularly, if not every day per week. Once we stop practicing such a critically important aspect of our lives, balance can degenerate rapidly.
Reinforcing balance is supported by strong core and lower extremity muscles. Strength training exercises such as squats and planks are simple and effective exercises that benefit exercise participants at an entry-level of fitness to the regularly practicing fitness veteran. Along with strength training, exercises specifically for balance include movements that position the body in a broad or narrow stance, moving in straight lines, or standing on one leg for a brief period. Below are a few simple stretches we include in our personal training clients’ movement prep routines at the beginning of every training session that are meant to improve and maintain balance:
Single leg balance: Stand with both feet on the ground and toes facing forward. While distributing your center of gravity toward one foot, gradually lift the opposite foot off the ground and hold it in an elevated position. Hold this position for 10-30 seconds on both legs. To reinforce safety, ensure to perform this exercise next to an object that can be used to grab onto to stabilize in case a loss of balance occurs, such as a wall or sturdy rail.
Heel-to-toe walk: Stand with both feet on the ground and toes facing forward. While distributing your center of gravity toward one foot, gradually bring the opposite forward until is just before your stable foot and touch your heel to the toe of the stabilizing foot. Once your balance has been recalibrated to the new leading foot, bring the trailing foot around the stabilizing foot and repeat the same movement traveling in a straight line. Travel forward in this movement for about the length of 5 to 10 feet.
These examples are not cutting-edge movements one might see professional athletes performing in their strength and conditioning sessions. However, these movements offer the ability to be performed consistently. Practicing simple and effective balancing tactics at least two to three days per week for just one set offers the potential to improve everyday balance, decrease the likelihood of injury, and improve our confidence throughout the movements that become hindered as general aging occurs.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
