Is Your Exercise Program Balanced?

A critical component of any well-designed exercise program is balance training.  Unfortunately, it is often overlooked.

There are numerous studies that explore the numbers and types of injuries related to falls.  Strained knees or ankles, broken hips, even death can occur.  There are tremendous costs associated with injuries from falls, financial, physical, and mental.  It’s staggering.  But we don’t necessarily need to spout out a bunch of statistics to understand the impact.  Chances are you or someone you know, a family member or a friend has fallen, so you know firsthand how devastating it can be.

The largest demographic at risk of falling of course is the elderly.  As we age, muscle strength and bone density decrease and we become less active.  This can create instability in our movement patterns, which makes us more susceptible to falling.  We are not as “smooth” as we used to be and our ability to compensate if we slip or stumble is not as refined.  Our ability to recover also decreases as we age, which means falling when your 65+ vs. when your 20 can be far more impactful.

But the elderly are not the only ones at risk.  Our lifestyles also have a tremendous impact on our ability to move.  Spending countless hours in front of the computer or TV creates muscle imbalances.  Our muscles tighten up and one side can become more dominant than the other.  And most people do not even realize it.  So let’s say that your right side is stronger than you left.  When you slip or stumble and you start to fall towards the left, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to keep yourself from hitting the deck or at the very least landing awkwardly.

So let’s examine a typical exercise routine for a moment.  A fairly standard approach is some cardio, maybe a treadmill, coupled with some resistance training.  So if we have these imbalances, one side more dominant than the other, what happens when you perform these exercises?  That’s correct, the dominant side compensates for the imbalances leaving the weaker side to continue to fall behind.

Adding balance training to an exercise routine can help correct muscle imbalances and re-train the body and mind to handle those times when you have to react quickly.  The simplest definition of balance training is performing movements on one leg at a time.  Exercises can be progressed (made more difficult) by increasing the instability of the surface.  Floor to balance beam to half foam roll to balance discs, etc.

So if you're ready to get balanced, contact me for an assessment, http://www.phoenixhealthandfitness.net