Why You Keep Losing Your Balance

I often get asked about balance.

If you’ve worked with me, you’ll be familiar with these movements I get you to do with one foot forward and reaching the arms, often these movements have titles like “suspension” or “shift”

It’s these movements that often have people telling me their balance is poor.

A statement often followed by asking how to improve balance.

And it’s a question I’ve long been interested in.

As a young lad learning Karate, balance seemed important for kicking and moving well.

In fact a lot of martial arts is about disrupting the other persons balance.

In the mountains, be it hiking, running, biking or whatever, balance was often tested and could mean the difference between getting home safe and having a nasty fall.

So what is balance?

Well, other than the skill of not falling on your face, it’s a complicated idea.

It is a mix of vestibular input, ie the information coming from your eyes and inner ear.

Proprioception ie the ability to know where you body is in space, particulary knowing where one part is is in relation to another, think touching your nose with your finger while your eyes are closed.

Power & Strength, the muscles simply being able to move with enough speed, force and timing to adjust and keep you balanced.

And a thing I noticed and don’t hear spoken about enough, balance is very often task specific. Being poised and balanced in one setting, doesn’t mean you’ll be poised and balanced in all settings.

So how do we improve our balance?

The same as we would improve anything, by challenging it and following the fundamental principle of progressive resistance.

We need to stimulate muscle, so strength and movement training to ensure we have the strength, the power and the timing.

We need to work on our vestibular system, so head and eye movement.

We need to improve our proprioception, or feeling how our body is in space.

A huge part of the puzzle is tension.

Holding the body tight does a few things.

1 - a tense muscle can’t react, it is already contracted so must first relax to contract again.

2 - tension gets in the way of proprioception, you lose that sensitivity

3 - tension increases sympathetic tone, i.e. stress, which again, messes with timing and awareness.

This tension may be habit, it may be protecting an old injury or it can simply be fear, nervousness over falling.

And that right there is one of the fastest ways to improve balance, remove the fear of failing.

Either by setting up beside something you can grab, or having a soft surface to land on and of course, practicing some breakfalls in order to land safely.

After that, while practicing balance and skills that require balance, find a static point to stare at to activate the eye tracking.

Slow the breathing to bring down tension

And gradually over time, push a little more and a little more.

You can increase how far you reach, you can increase the speed with which you reach, you can add load.

You can add changes, so hopping from one foot to the other, spinning, looking left & right, up & down, even closing the eyes.

It’s a big topic when we break it down and try to explain it, but as balance relies on reflexive action, practice is very simple.

Just start easy and ensure that when you do lose balance and fall, you do so safely, knowing that over balancing is teaching you more about balance than pretty much all the other drills put together!

Simple

Not Easy

Dave

www.davehedges.net