
Easy Ways to Improve Your Stability and Strength
Develop increased balance and stability with these simple exercises
Sep 16, 2009
Jun 07, 2021
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Your physical activity routine might be focused on losing weight or building cardiovascular health (or both), but it's also important to spend a little time developing your balance and stability.
You may think you're already doing that by taking exercise walks or working out at the gym. Indeed, one study of postmenopausal women showed that those who were regular brisk walkers had better postural stability than women who weren't regular walkers. But building overall good balance takes specific training, which is important for preventing the falls that can lead to debilitating injuries such as hip or wrist fractures.
To get that training, don't just rush out and buy a balance board or giant stability ball, says Ryan Overturf, BS, Assistant Director of Professional Training at TELOS Fitness Center in Dallas (ACSM, CIAR, MATT, PTPT) and Certifying Instructor for the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research. You need to first develop your balance on flat, non-moving (static) surfaces before advancing to moving (dynamic) ones.
Brain training for balance
How do you develop stability on purpose? "You're talking about muscle strengthening, but you're also talking about brain training," says Cynthia Trowbridge, PhD, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Texas, Arlington.
For secure balance, she says, you must develop good corrective responses to "information coming from your environment, whether that's (through) vision or the sensation under your feet." And you need to anticipate what your body's responses should be.
In that way, says Dr. Trowbridge, who is also a certified athletic trainer (ATC) and certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS), "you challenge your stability by cueing your muscles to help maintain your balance and positioning. Walking outdoors on a rough gravel path or grass surface would challenge you more than walking around on the kitchen floor or using a stationary bike."
To teach your brain to react and control balance better, she advises putting yourself "in safe, unstable positions." A good example is standing on one leg, with something nearby to grab onto if you start to wobble. Or stand on both feet, but on a foam pad or couch cushion. These experiences help your brain learn to respond to the changed information your body is receiving.
Dr. Trowbridge suggests this "brain training" to build stability:
Building strength in your trunk
Maybe you've been working on getting stronger arms or legs, but for stability you also need to strengthen the muscles in your core, or trunk. Those include your abdominals, lower back, shoulder, hip and gluteal muscles.
That means resistance or weight training, using your body's weight to begin with and then moving on to equipment such as exercise bands and free weights. Machine weights are good for other things, Dr. Trowbridge says, but not for building balance. "What machine weights do is they put you in a false stability. Our accidents don't happen when we're sitting in a chair," she says.
Simple yoga positions are good for developing your core, Dr. Trowbridge adds. Research has also shown that even just four weeks of Tai Chi, a Chinese exercise form that uses controlled movements and weight shifting, improves balance in older people.
Mr. Overturf recommends these exercises for building stability:
Body Weight Squat
One-Leg Hip Abduction
Other tips on improving your balance