Most of us give as much thought to balance as we do to gravity. After all, when we get past the toddler stage and start blasting around as bipeds, we rarely worry about our ability to stay upright.
Yet our balance is tested, relied upon and jeopardized from the cradle to the grave. The ability to move about without fear of falling has to be maintained, especially as we age. As with many things, we must use it or lose it. Fitness and medical professionals say that maintaining and improving balancing skills are key health and safety concerns, whether a person is rehabilitating from an illness or injury or training for a triathlon.
“We have to challenge our systems to make them stronger,” says Stuart Wilson, a sports-medicine physical therapist and owner of Champion Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy. “We get really good at what we do. For example, if we sit a lot, then we get really good at sitting. We train our body for that activity and neglect other motions, such as standing, walking and so forth.”
Similarly, if someone is injured skiing, for example, he or she may sit more than before the injury, or have to rely on crutches. “The tactile sensory system will start to deteriorate, requiring rehabilitation while the patient is healing,” Wilson says.
In the absence of neurological disorders or other disabilities, our naturally occurring gyroscope operates automatically. We do not have to think about maintaining balance when standing still any more than during dynamic maneuvers, such as walking.
Our ability to maintain balance goes deep into our human physiology, involving specific and complex interactions between our eyes (visual system), middle and inner ear (vestibular system) and proprioceptive sensors in the muscles and tendons (tactile sensory system).
Our eyes are the most obvious part of our system of balance. They establish the grid of our surroundings and our body’s position in it, noting where we are in relation to the horizon.
Sensors in the middle ear (called maculae) and the semicircular canals detect head motion and transmit the information to the temporal lobe in the brain. These help you keep your balance even as your head is moving and rotating.
Proprioceptors are specialized nerve endings in muscles, joints, tendons, ears and other organs that, when stimulated by movement, report on the position of the body to the brain. They detect where we are in space and can trigger defensive reflexes to resist unsafe action on the muscles, such as causing a muscle to contract if unsafe stretching is detected.
When any one of these systems is challenged (such as when we are walking in the dark), our other two systems become more acute.
Yet many of us will experience a loss of balance along with the aging process. Our vision and hearing can fail; we become sedentary and lose sensory input from muscle. If we lose any one of the three aspects of our “gyroscope,” we start to lose our sense of balance.
To build or maintain balance, a person trains by progressively taking away any one, two or all of the three systems. For example, standing with eyes closed challenges the visual system; standing and shaking your head side to side challenges the vestibular system. Permutations are endless, such as:
• Standing on one leg with the eyes closed challenges the visual and tactile sensory system.
• Standing on one leg with the eyes closed while also shaking your head from side to side challenges all three systems.
Tackle some exercises
Very simple exercises can be done to improve and enhance our balance. But before trying them, “Know your limits and be aware of your surroundings. Be safe,” Wilson says. If your balance is compromised because of an injury or other medical situation, work with a physical therapist so that a proper evaluation and personal prescription for healing can be designed.
For many people, standing on one foot is challenge enough even without closing the eyes or turning the head. If balance is a struggle for you, practice your balancing exercises with a partner or, with a solid and sturdy object nearby that you can hold onto. Always be prepared to stop and catch yourself. Be competent and confident performing exercises with the eyes open and the head steady before progressing to eyes closed and any head turning.
Try this at home
Here are some simple exercises you can do at home with no equipment:
While standing on one foot:
• Brush your lower teeth; switch feet to brush the uppers.
• Extend the other leg in different directions — front, side, back.
• Draw the alphabet with the hands.
When that gets easy, add a partner and a light recreation or medicine ball, and play catch, tossing or bouncing the ball back and forth to each other 10 times on each foot. When this gets easy, add the element of time by standing on each foot for 30 seconds, increasing your time by 15 seconds as your skill improves.
Equipment
Many fitness facilities offer a variety of equipment specifically designed to challenge balancing skills while also strengthening and improving our core muscles and posture. The three most commonly used specifically for the purpose of creating instability and challenging balance are the foam pad (a square of dense foam large enough for both feet), the BOSU ball (a stability ball cut in half with a solid base that is also large enough for both feet; the acronym stands for “both sides up”); and Dyna Discs (circular, inflatable discs large enough to stand on with one foot).
The degree of difficulty usually increases from a foam pad to a BOSU Ball, to the Dyna Disc. “The progression on each piece is from both feet to one foot, to eyes closed,” Wilson says. “The ultimate challenge is to stand with one foot on one Dyna Disc with eyes closed and shaking your head.” With the possible exception of Cirque du Soleil performers, this is a challenge for even the best-conditioned among us.
Using these exercises to regain balancing skills is just the first part of the larger equation that includes rehabilitation of posture and muscle strength, particularly of the core muscles (abdominals, gluteus and lower back in particular). Therefore, the next step is to perform balancing exercises while working with weights.
The usual exercises can be employed to train your balance while also challenging with any one of these balance systems. Try performing a biceps curl while standing on one leg or on a BOSU. Or, perform a crunch on a stability ball with your eyes closed. Be creative, have fun and be safe.
Linda J. Buch is a certified fitness trainer in Denver; linda@ljbalance.com.
Books:
“The Great Balance and
Stability Handbook,”
Productive Fitness
Products, 2003, $8.95
“Balance Training:
Stability Workouts
for Core Strength,”
by Karon Karter,
Ulysses Press, 2007,
$14.95
“Functional Fitness
for Older Adults,”
by Patricia Brill,
Human Kinetics, 2004,
$32
“Fallproof!:
A Comprehensive
Balance and Mobility
Program,”
by Debra Rose,
Human Kinetics, 2003,
$54
