How’s Your Balance?
Nearly every patient whose balance I test—and find lacking—is thoroughly surprised. Young and old alike, the ability to balance on your own two feet, specifically one at a time, can decline markedly without you ever noticing. What you do notice are things like: recurrent ankle sprains, knee or hip pain, and/or low back discomfort, to name a few.
Single leg balance is critical to orthopedic health. Seventy percent of walking is actually spent balanced on only one of your legs. If you struggle with the foot and ankle control it takes to balance on that one foot, your body will come up with a number of compensations to help keep you moving forward. The problem is, those compensations collect their “pay” in the form of pain, degeneration, and/or disability.
Past injuries and aging muscles can chisel away at both the ability to adapt to varied walking surfaces and the ability to keep the body’s balance during your daily activities.
As a rule of thumb, you should be able to balance on one foot (without allowing your legs to touch one another) for a total of 10 seconds, without significant trunk disturbance or wild arm swinging.
If you attempt this pose and find you cannot achieve this standard, try these balance-improving maneuvers:
- Stand on both feet with a 4-inch separation at the heels. In a controlled manner, roll your weight to the outside of both feet, creating a high arch in your feet, all while keeping your big toes in contact with the floor. Slowly lower your arches back down to the floor. Repeat 10x.
- Stand with both feet as above. Slowly turn your body from right to left, as if you were looking behind yourself, without bending your knees. As you turn to the right, your weight should move to the inside of your left foot (flattening the arch) and the outside of your right one (raising the arch)—while still keeping the big toe of your right foot in contact with the floor. The reverse weight bearing shift should occur when you turn your trunk to the left. Repeat 10x, rotating right, then left.
- Now, stand on one foot (and remember, no contact between your two legs), counting the seconds you can maintain your balance. Repeat 3x each leg.
Continue to make these exercises a part of your daily routine and soon your 10-second “balancing act” will be restored!