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Balance has long been an underrated measure of the body’s ability to perform.
If you play a team sport, physically resisting your opponents’ presence is usually a necessary skill. As we age, falling becomes more of a threat to our well-being and therefore requires that we can maintain our position as we move throughout life. Balance is a crucially important aspect of our athletic ability and our long term health.
Unfortunately, we don’t get a lot of balancing practice naturally throughout our days so here are a couple ways you can pursue better balance and stability:
If you enjoy using weights or prefer gym workouts, check out Eero Westerberg’s, founder of Vahva Fitness, take on balance and stability workouts.
It was workouts just like these that helped create what is now known as the Athlete 20XX Program, a comprehensive program to develop your ideal athletic ability and physique. As it is described in the program, you will:
- Build Strength and Mobility
- Develop Unrivaled Stability and Balance
- Turn Your Body Into Pure Power
Become a complete athlete and never lack stability and balance again with the help of Athlete 20XX.
For more details and information about the exercises in the video, visit the blog post that outlines the video in a written format.
If you enjoy at-home or outdoor workouts, try one of the methods I’ve been using.
I recently acquired a few logs of varying sizes and textures. They basically just sit in the backyard and whenever I need a break or just want to mess around, I’ll go out and walk along these logs in my bare feet and challenge myself to accomplish different things.
Sometimes I’ll set them up in a long line and try to cross them all, sometimes I side-step my way across them to work on lateral movement, and other times I crouch really low while I’m crossing them to work different muscles.
I will also pick them up and either press them over my head or walk with them, which because of the varying textures and weights, forces my core to help me stabilize them comfortably.
They’re all just little games to me and I encourage you to try it too. If the logs have a tendency to roll and you do it for long enough, it’s truly a full body workout. Your feet, legs, core, arms, neck, and head will all be working to keep you balanced.
Have your kids do it with you too; they will love an activity like this. There are plenty of options to get your kids interested without feeling intimidated by falling.
If it starts getting too cold outside or you would rather have this setup in your basement, other ideas like a firm balance beam make the perfect replacement for an outdoor log.
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