At the foot of this article, you will find 10 links that will take you to 10 short videos to assist you in improving your balance. I hope that you find these balance exercises beneficial.
Balance as we get older
As we get older, we may start to notice our balance is not as good as it was in our youth. Since balance is so complex, there are a variety of reasons this happens. That’s why Balance and Mobility Training is so important.
Our vision is probably not quite as good as it once was. Our vestibular (inner ear) capabilities may be decreased. And our centre of gravity may have shifted significantly due to excess weight or poor posture. The senses in our hands and feet may be diminished as well.
Perhaps you’ve tried hopping on a swing at a playground in recent years. With an ageing vestibular function, what was once a thrill can feel very disorienting.
Good balance is needed for so many daily activities—navigating a parking lot, stepping onto curbs, moving past people in a movie theatre, stepping over objects in our path, dancing at a wedding, hiking, etc.
It’s easy to take balance for granted in our 40s. What we don’t want is to wake up one day in our 60s and realize we don’t have the balance we need to feel safe doing the things we need to do and the things we like to do. You want to be able to take your granddaughter to the park or walk your dog or even visit faraway places—for years to come!
Trusting your body and your senses when you’re navigating life is important. That’s why we will train your balance using a multidimensional approach. We will guide you through postural strategies, balance challenges, and multi-sensory and centre of gravity activities. The result? You will not only see improvement in balance, but in overall fitness as well.
We’ll begin with simple exercises, such as standing on one leg or walking heel to toe. As your awareness and balance improves, we may add in leg swings or practice standing on one leg with your eyes closed or even work up to balancing on squishy uneven surfaces.
Our trainers know how to incorporate many different balance challenges into workouts. The good news is that most exercises can easily be adapted to challenge and train our balance as we work on other functions—particularly mobility. Our GO4Life fitness classes for Older Adults incorporate balance & mobility exercises in every class.
Good Mobility is Essential Too
Mobility is really about your ability to move. More specifically, it’s your ability to move in different ways in any environment. Of course, it can be as simple as walking and running. But it also includes movements like getting up and down from the floor and standing up from a seated position without using your arms to steady or push yourself up. It’s also about getting around obstacles, like when your living room is full of moving boxes, or when you’re browsing a crowded farmer’s market.
Good mobility helps us navigate familiar and unfamiliar environments.
Far too often, we get to a point in life where we seldom have playgrounds or obstacle courses to challenge us and keep us young. We go to work, walk into our office, walk out of our office, and go home. The same routine every day. Once at home, we generally don’t find a lot of surprising obstacles either.
Then, we get the opportunity to go hiking somewhere, and we suddenly realize how challenging it is to step over tree roots, navigate uneven terrain, and climb over boulders on the trail. It requires a lot more mobility than the normal day-to-day activities we’re accustomed to.
Balance & Mobility Keep Us Moving
Balance and mobility go hand in hand. While balance ensures that we stay upright and can control our movements, mobility directs the many types of movements that are needed in specific environments.
Both are essential for living your best life. You need balance and mobility when you play a sport, like tennis or golf, and you need them when you get up from a chair or when turning to look behind you.
Enjoyment of the things we want to do and like to do is diminished when we notice challenges to our balance or mobility—when we start to struggle going up and down steps, dancing with our partner, or when dealing with difficult terrain.
For some, even turning our head to the left or right while we walk in a straight line becomes a challenge.
That’s when we start to see people opting out of hiking and biking opportunities; skipping a boat ride because they can’t climb in or out of the craft; or settling for simpler holidays because they just don’t have the physical capabilities needed to explore the world.
You may not be at a point today where your balance and mobility are keeping you from doing much. But think about the coming years. How invested are you, currently, in maintaining your balance and mobility so you can keep doing the things you need, want, and love to do for the rest of your life?
Our GO4Life fitness classes for Older Adults incorporate balance & mobility exercises in every class.
Training Variety for Balance and Mobility
Life is an adventure, and you want to be ready to take on whatever opportunities might come along. That means we need to train you for a wide variety of physical activities.
One thing you’re likely to notice is that balance and mobility training incorporates different movements than the exercises you may be accustomed to. You can expect your workouts to be much more dynamic, and, in a lot of ways, much more fun because we’re going to be incorporating new things all the time.
As soon as you feel you have mastered one thing, we are going to shift gears and introduce another obstacle or another step. A different platform. A different device.
We’re going to ask you to get up and down from the floor in different ways. You may be challenged to carry uneven weights, to perform exercises while standing on padded surfaces, to reach in all directions with your feet firmly planted beneath your hips, and more. When we challenge your body this way—with unique tasks and motions—your balance and mobility improve.
Our goal is to get you to a place where you will not have trouble doing any of things that you want to do (or dream to do), no matter what your age is. Whether you’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s, you will still be able to move with grace and ease and will be able to do all the things you want to do.
Movement, in our opinion, is living, and we want to make sure you live your life and enjoy it to the fullest.
Our GO4Life fitness classes for Older Adults incorporate balance & mobility exercises in every class.
Balance Exercises
Here are the links to 10 short videos that will assist you in improving your balance. I hope that you find them beneficial.
Rear Lunge.
Rock the Boat.
Toe to Heal.
Curtsy Lunge:
Single Leg Balance:
Tree Stand:
Two Way Leg Swing:
Around the Clock:
Under & Over:
One Leg Stand & Catch the Ball: