Finding Your Balance: How to Improve Stability and Coordination in Your Fitness Routine

As we get older, balance gets a lot more important. In past posts, we’ve discussed how the young tend to bounce when they hit the ground while those of us of a more advanced age shall we say… well, we’re more likely to go splat. Avoiding falls is critical over the age of 65, especially for folks who are more prone to breaks due to bone density loss (osteopenia and osteoporosis). So let’s talk about some ways to work on your balance so you can stay upright, mobile, and pain-free for as long as possible!

It Doesn’t Have to Be Really Hard

If you’re new to balance-focused exercises, it’s easy to get caught up in the social media version of balance challenges. But as you know if you’ve been keeping up with us here at Reclaim Lifestyles for a bit, we are all about starting with what you can do and building from there. So if you’re not ready to try standing on one leg with your arms crossed and your eyes closed (which, by the way, is really challenging!), start with something much simpler. The point is not to be flailing all over the place. It’s to consistently make small, gradual improvements from wherever you’re starting.

Get a Baseline

One way exercise pros might assess a client’s balance ability is by observing how steady they are when going from sitting to standing. If someone is rocking a lot as they stand, that’s a sign that there’s some room for improvement to get them on more solid footing. So if you find that it takes you a few seconds to orient yourself when you stand up, consider taking a more intentional approach to improving your balance.

Of course, plenty of other factors can come into play that may mess with someone’s balance at any given time. If you’re dehydrated, you’re more likely to experience the vasovagal response—that dizzying head rush that can happen when you stand up quickly. Because muscle retains a lot of our body’s water and muscle mass declines with age, older folks are more likely to be dehydrated at any given time. So if you find that you are frequently getting dizzy from just standing up, try upping your water intake.

Other folks experience vertigo, a very unsettling symptom of feeling like you’re spinning that can result from a variety of reasons, including the calcium crystals in your ear becoming loose. If that’s the cause of your balance problems (you can suspect this if your dizziness came on very suddenly after you moved a certain way, like rolling over in bed or bending down), you’ll want to see your doctor or a physical therapist or other professional who can help reposition the crystals. Then you’ll be able to tackle balance exercises with more confidence.

Bite-Sized Balance Exercises

You may have come across the term “exercise snacks”—taking exercise snacks means spreading out really simple exercises throughout your normal daily routine. No change of clothes required. It could be taking a quick break from sitting at your desk to do 10 squats, or testing your balance while brushing your teeth or doing the dishes. 

Do whatever is within your current abilities that challenges you just a little bit. No need to try something complicated and topple at your sink. If picking one foot completely up off the ground has you dangerously wobbly, try a kickstand: keep most of your weight on one foot and keep the toes of your other foot lightly propped just behind you, like a kickstand! As you are able, practice lifting your kickstand for a few seconds at a time, building up the periods of time your foot is lifted gradually. 

You can practice this kickstand balance exercise whenever you find yourself standing in one spot for a while. We’ve already mentioned tooth brushing and dish washing, but the possibilities are almost limitless—standing in line at the post office, working at a standing desk, watching your kids or grandkids at their sports practice or games. Once you start looking for opportunities to fit exercise snacks into your day, you’ll find them everywhere.

Change It Up

Keep your body guessing by trying different exercises to test and strengthen your balance. Here are some other ideas and adjustments that you can add into your routine:

• Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts - if you can’t keep your leg completely off the ground, keep your toes on the ground.
• Heel-to-Toe Walking
• Heel-to-Toe or Tandem Standing
• Single Leg Balance - count how many times you need to put your other foot down to catch yourself in the span of 30 seconds and try to reduce that number over time.

Clearing the Highways of Your Neuromuscular System

Training your balance with progressively difficult exercises helps you not only build your stabilizing muscles, but you improve the connections between your brain and your muscles. You can think of those connections like highways which become more congested with traffic over time. As the highways fall into disuse, the fewer usable lanes there are, which causes traffic slow-downs and jams. When you put those highways back into use, lanes open up, and the traffic flows more freely. 

While this neat little visual can make the process sound pretty simple, it’s good to keep in mind that it’s okay for it to be hard, too. You’ll falter, you’ll wobble, you’ll meet your goals and then maybe backslide a bit. But as long as you can brush yourself off and get back to it, you’ll continue making forward progress. 

Just 10 Minutes

A little frustration here and there is normal, and there will certainly be days where you just “don’t feel like it.” On those days, commit to doing just 10 minutes of what you planned to do. If you still want to stop after those 10 minutes, you can call it a day knowing you gave it a real shot and try again tomorrow. But more often than not, you’ll probably find that it just took 10 minutes to get the momentum you needed to finish what you started. And you’ll probably feel a lot better after you do a little activity on a day when you’re feeling kind of crummy!

Tracking Your Progress

If you’re looking for a way to improve your balance in ways that you can track, consider using an app like Restart!, which builds personalized workouts for you that focus on strength training, flexibility, and balance. As you complete workouts, the app will automatically adjust the difficulty level of exercises in your workouts according to your feedback. As you get stronger and exercises get easier, the app will take it up a notch, and over time, you’ll notice that you are able to complete more sets or reps or more difficult variations of exercises you may have struggled with at the beginning.

Better Balance for Healthy Aging

If you’re here reading this, it’s clear that you care about your health and want to do whatever you can to age gracefully (pun intended). By adding balance exercises to your routine, you’re taking important steps toward ensuring you’re able to do everything you want to be able to do for as long as possible. Cheers to a more balanced future.