Video and Transcript: Advanced Balance Exercises

Hi, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here from Pain Science Physical Therapy, and I wanted to put together a more advanced balance exercise video because that seems to be one of the most popular videos that we have on this YouTube channel is balance exercises. 

So, I’ve got here a foam pad, and what I would do is you could start by--um--and by the way, if you need to have a stick nearby for balance assistance. Right? So, I’ve got a nice, firm stick. You could also use a chair or a countertop, but I've got my feet on this foam pad. Now, if you start with eyes open, feet about shoulder width apart, again, using the stick, that should be a good place to start. Then, you close your eyes. That makes the activity more challenging. As soon as you take out your visual system for each of these activities, you’d want to try and hold for about 30 seconds. Repeat that maybe two to three times. And then I bring feet close together. And as soon as I do that, if I’m not using the stick, I'm going to sway a little bit more. And then eyes closed, and you'll notice that I'm going to sway even more than that. It’s pretty challenging. Ok? Again, use the stick if you need to just to get a little bit of input as to where the ground is. So, eyes open gets--is challenging. Eyes closed [is] more challenging. Normal base of support has a challenge. Narrow base of support [is] more [of a] challenge. 

Then, we can move to single leg balance. Eyes [are] open. Eyes [are] closed. Again, [it] gets more challenging. Now, all of these are static postures, so what does that mean? That means that we’re just trying to hold a position and not worry about movement. So, to up the ante, to make this more challenging, we’re going to add movement and keep eyes open for now. Alright? So, [the] first exercise we’re going to do is something that’s called a Romanian deadlift. Keeping the trunk nice and straight, keeping the knees slightly bent, I'm going to actually hinge at my trunk and then come back up again. It’s not a very far motion. Just hinge and come up again, doing this with two legs on the foam pad. And then, I'm going to take this off the foam pad to start with. Ok? The other way to make this balance to be--to have a balance challenge is I’m going to use this stick for balance. I'm going to lift my opposite leg. So, I don't know if you guys have ever seen those bobble birds. They have fluid in the bottom of them, and they just sort of -heee. They kind of hinge forward. That's what you’re going to do. The leg doesn’t move. Knee is slightly bent, and the opposite leg comes up. And, I move as a unit. Haha. And then, I come back up again. My trunk is kept very stable. I’m not rotating my hips. Everything--my hips are facing straight down, coming down and then back up again. Now, if I want to increase the challenge of that, I would go to the foam pad. Right? So, one leg comes up forward and back up again. It's not an easy exercise to do. So, that’s called a Romanian deadlift (an RDL). And again, you can make that more challenging. You can add in. You can take away your visual system from that. Close your eyes, and try to do that. Again, switching legs in between [is] really important. Right? So, you do maybe five or ten on one side, maybe five or ten on the other. If you alternate one on each side and you keep doing that, that can be challenging as well. So, this is just a way to increase that balance challenge. 

Let me know how it goes. If you have any questions, definitely put them down below. I hope this video gets a thumb’s up and you guys have a great day!