How good is your balance? Is this something you’ve thought about?
We tend to hear people talking about cardio and heart health, perhaps bone and muscle mass and strength training, and often flexibility. You don’t hear about balance quite as much, but balance it key to our health and physicality and ageing well.
Balance can actually be used as a longevity predictor. A recent study shows that we’re twice as likely to die in the next decade if we can’t balance on one leg for a minimum of ten seconds. Wow.
This is why this is something to be thinking about, as it’s all too often overlooked, but can be a key health indicator.
Balance can worsen due to age, certain medications, health conditions and lack of physical activity. It is also often something we take for granted, until we notice it worsening.
The good thing, like many things with our bodies, is that we can usually work on this area and improve it.
It is never going to be too late to do something about this, and it goes without saying that it can only be better to do something sooner. It’s actually suggested that over 65s do work on balance exercises twice a week.
Why is balance important?
Along with our bone and muscle strength, being able to balance properly fundamentally underpins all of our movement.
We want to be able to continue our everyday activities, to retain our basic functional fitness, and balance is central to this.
As we age, falls become more likely and can be more damaging to our bodies, good balance can prevent them.
Good balance can enhance our core strength, lower backs, and posture, retaining strength and reducing pain.
How to improve your balance
Many forms of sports and exercise will help you here, such as dancing, yoga, ball games, running, resistance training and cycling.
Strengthening your body with weights will build leg muscles and improve your core, directly impacting your balance.
There are then specific exercises that you can do to improve and these can be a good way to sense check for yourself how well you’re doing.
There are lots of short YouTube videos you could follow along with, such as this one, that you could try a couple of times a week if this is an area you know you need to improve.
This one’s a good one as it’s all from standing, and is helpful for beginners.
Or if you’d rather read and check out a few suggested exercises and diagrams, here are some useful balancing exercise you can try.
These kind of exercise don’t take up much time at all, but good balance can really improve health and day to day life.
How good is your balance?