Introductory Article to Balance

Training the vestibular system to improve balance.

Please be careful. Balance training relies on destabilising yourself, which obviously leaves you prone to falling over and hurting yourself. Take precautions by giving yourself something to fall onto or something to grab if you lose your balance.

Exercises

Here are a set of basic balance exercises to get started with:

(For these balance exercises you may want to stand near a solid support such as a counter top or a tall chair. If you are concerned about falling you can lightly grasp the support with your finger tips. Then try the exercises by keeping your hand near the support, but not actually touching it.

If you feel particularly uneasy about your balance, get someone to stand by you ready to provide support.)

Once you find a balance exercise easy, move on to something more difficult.

Do exercises for 10 minutes, 2 times daily.

Core Balance Exercises

1. Stand with your feet together for 2 minutes.

2. Pretend you are on a balance beam and put your right foot directly in front of your left foot. The heel of your right foot should be gently touching the toes of the left foot. Hold for 2 minutes then do the same, but put the left foot in front this time.

3. Stand on your right leg for 2 minutes. Repeat with your left leg.

4. Purchase a balance board (or teeter board) and remain balanced on it for 2 minutes.

Eye orientation

To make sure your eyes are well attuned to your sense of balance, complete the above core balance exercises again but with the following additions.

Throughout the exercise, keep your head upright, and in a stationary position.

- Hold your right hand straight out in front of you (i.e. don’t bend at the elbow). Do the ‘thumbs up‘ sign. Keep your eye focused on your thumb nail, and begin to trace the figure of 8 sign in the air. Make it as large as possible.

- Repeat, but in the opposite direction.

- Repeat with left hand.

Head orientation

In the last exercise we kept our heads still. This time we are going to move our heads. So go through the core balance exercises again, this time using these additions:

- Head turned to the left (as if you were shaking your head)

- Head turned to the right

- Head tilted to the left (so that it rests on the shoulder)

- Head tilted to the right

- Head tilted down (as if your were nodding)

- Head tilted up towards the sky.

Eye and head orientation combined

Once again complete the core balance exercises. This time, however, we are going to keep our eyes fixed on a stationary object while moving the head. I use a brightly coloured pin placed in a pin board.

Place the object at about eye level.

Get into your balancing stance.

Keep your eye focused on the object and turn your head to the left, and tilt it up, down, left and right. All the time keep your eye positioned on the object.

You can make this harder by placing the object on a busy background so that it is more difficult to keep track of.

Eyes closed

You saw earlier how sight is linked heavily with your ability to balance. This is true of other senses as well, but sight is the easiest to bypass and has the most dramatic effect when we do so.

If we are specifically going to work on our sense of balance we can gain a lot of benefit from isolating that sense. So go through the core balance exercises a final time, but, this time, keep your eyes closed.

Unstable Surfaces

Balance board
Swiss ball work. Balance while standing on ball.

Sports

Sports, especially racquet sports will help with tracking and depth perception while you keep your balance. Good balance sports include:

• Racquet sports (table tennis is very good)
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Martial arts
• Gymnastics
• Circus games
• Twister!