Tips to Improve Your Balance…Part 2

A few weeks ago, we published a video talking about a single leg balance progression you can work on to help improve your balance. This week we are continuing the balance theme. In this weeks video we look at manipulating vision to increase the difficulty of your single leg balance progression.

We use our vision for approximately 70 percent of our total body balance and when we manipulate the use of our eyes, the single leg progression begins to get quite a bit tougher. Think of when you’re walking around in a dark room. There are a few reasons why. The first being somewhat obvious in that we don’t want to bang into anything. The second is a bit less obvious, and that is, we’re off balance!! It’s not something that is apparent to us in the moment because our bodies go on auto pilot and adapt to the change in the environment. We walk slower, we stick our hands out to feel for objects, and walk with a wider base of support. Give these exercises a try and the next time the power goes out at home, you’ll be more than prepared to handle the conditions.

About the Author: Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer. He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.