The BEST Exercise to Enhance Balance and Avoid Falling and Breaking Something!

If you want to learn how to maintain your balance, and not fall to a possible death, stick around. 

Falling is a serious business.  It can change everything.

If you become a burden to family, to friends or if you end up in a wheelchair, you might find yourself in a health care facility because of it.

You're going to learn how to improve your balance through this one balance exercise I'll share with you in the video above. Better balance, makes you less of a fall risk. 

Your body is changing. As you become more mature, things change. Your vision is changing. There are cataracts, and macular degeneration.  

Your vestibular system is changing. You lose more and more hair follicles in your ears every year.

Your somatosensory, your nervous system, your feet’s nerve endings that tell you where you are in space - all changing as you get older. 

If you're afraid of becoming a fall risk, if you're anxious about your balance not being what it should be, listen up. 

1/3 of people aged 65+ fall annually. Falls contribute to over 500,000 fractures every year. 20% of hip fractures are fatal within a year and over 50% of survivors will never return to full function. 

In 2018, 3 million seniors ended up in the ER due to falls. 900,000 of them became hospitalizations, costing over $50 billion. 

If you want to remain independent, keep reading. There's hope. 

I want to teach you one simple way to improve your balance. 

I want to teach you how, when you remove a sensory input, to train your body to understand what's happening, so your body knows how to respond. 

You're going to need a pillow.  I mentioned the somatosensory system, your nerve endings, your proprioception that tells you where you are in space.

Take off your shoes and feel the floor.  Feel where you are in space as your feet give you sensory input.  

We're going to put a pillow on the floor. And I'm going to have you stand on a pillow. And I'm going to have you stand on a pillow. Always have a chair or countertop nearby that you can hold onto so you don’t fall.

Stand on the pillow, keep your feet shoulder to hip distance apart. And feel how it's a little unstable. 

Once you feel confident, once you feel like, Okay, I'm good on this, my body knows what to do on an unstable surface like this, try weight shifting back and forth on that unstable surface and see how that feels. Shift your weight so there’s more on your left foot and then more on your right foot.  Shift back and forth.  It's going to feel a little bit different. Your brain will adjust to that. 

Why did we do this? Why are we on the pillow? Your nerve endings in your feet, the proprioception of being able to locate where you are in space, has been removed. One of your sensory inputs has been removed.

Your brain has to figure out what to do with this. 

What do I do without having that proprioception, the ability to feel where I am? 

When you walk, you're often on an unstable surface. Very few sidewalks or roads are completely smooth, with no rocks or cracks.

This exercise, the simple act of standing on a pillow, will train your brain to stabilize your body so when you step on that inevitable rock or crack in the sidewalk, you are less likely to stumble or fall.

If this feels easy to you, making sure, again, that you have something to hold on to. Close your eyes because now you've not just taken a second sense away and your body has to figure out where you are in space. 

Most people sway when they close their eyes, especially when on an unstable surface. Even when you're on something flat, you sway a little bit. So close your eyes, and your body, your other sensory systems, your other senses have to figure out where you are in space and your body has to figure out how to stay upright.

Are you still stable? If you are, those are progressions. 

I'm going to give you another progression. First we stepped on a pillow which took away a little bit of sensory input. Then we closed our eyes. Second sensory input removed. 

Now we're going to narrow our stance. Can you bring your feet together? And if that feels easy, the next step, of course, is to close your eyes. Are you swaying a little bit more?  

Okay, we're going to give you one more challenge. Can you line up your feet heel to toe? Put one foot in front, and the other foot right behind it so you're linear now.  Now we're making the center of gravity linear, so it's even more challenging. Are your feet trying to figure out where you are in space? 

The final progression? Close your eyes while in that linear stance. You might only hold that for 5-10 seconds, you might only hold it for 1 second. 

Again, these are progressions.  You need to work up to that because you are training your brain and your body how to figure out where you are in space and maintain your balance. 

You should start to see balance gains quickly. But it will not solve all balance issues immediately. It takes time. 

It takes practice and repetition for your body and brain to understand because  you're training the other systems to work harder. And that's like training a muscle. You can't do a bicep curl and declare, “oh, I've got big guns now”. You have to do them over and over again to see growth. 

It's the same thing with balance. You have to train those other systems to work hard, because they're used to having the eyes or the feet or some other sense give input.

This is one way to train your balance. This is one way to become less of a fall risk so that you don’t end up being one of those statistics that I spoke about. I want you to commit to going on the journey. 

If you want more information on balance and how to become less of a fall risk, please reach out to me. I have extensive training and expertise in this field. I love working with Active Agers like you so they can be confident and remain independent. 

I want you to remain independent. I don't want you to feel like you've become a burden. I want you to walk with confidence, without fear of falling. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or want more information.

Stay active, 

- Adrianne