Why Is It Important to Have a Good Balance?

“Balance exercises that do not require any equipment and can be easily done by anyone who is just starting out at home or outside; Istanbul Okan University Hospital Orthopedics and Traumatology Specialist Prof. Dr. Kaya Hüsnü Akan explained the questions about balance.

Balance is the biological system that informs the state of our body in the environment and keeps it the way we want. Normal balance is formed according to information from our inner ear and other senses (such as sight, touch) and muscle movement.

Our sense of balance is created by the complex interaction of these parts of the nervous system:

• The inner ears (also called the labyrinth) detect the direction of movement. (Rotation, forward-backward, side to side, and up and down movements)
• While our eyes observe where our body is in space, zamIt also gives information about the direction of movements at the same time.
• Skin pressure sensors located on our feet or body parts that sense where we are sitting tell which part of our body is below and is in contact with the ground.
• Sensory receptors in muscles and joints report which body part is moving.
• The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) combines data from these four systems to form a coordinated movement.

It prevents falling and the fear of falling!

While it may not seem like much fun, the benefits of physical balance go far beyond walking properly. be balanced; It reduces musculoskeletal injuries, allows them to heal faster, increases performance and muscle strength in your entire body, rejuvenates the physiological age in the elderly, improves your posture and helps you to overcome the difficulties that you may encounter in your daily life more easily with your coordination. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology in 2015; It has been shown that performing balance, strengthening, stretching and endurance exercises in the elderly for 2.5 hours twice a week both reduces falls and relieves the fear of falling compared to the control group.

Countless benefits

In another study conducted in 2018; It has been shown that dancing, balance and resistance exercises, and aerobic exercises increase or preserve bone mass, thus preventing osteoporosis. In this study, it has been suggested that walking alone does not increase bone mass, but can halt its progression. Balance allows us to do many things in our daily lives that we do not appreciate, from walking to getting up from a chair to bending over to put on our socks. same zamIt is also used as a measure of independence in individuals who are getting older. Apart from this, studies on different stroke and multiple sclerosis patients showed balance; showed that strength and aerobic exercises increase the functional capacity, quality of life and psychosocial skills of patients, and prevent problems that may develop due to cardiovascular diseases.

How balanced are we?

Before we start the balance work, let's evaluate our situation. A simple test will suffice for this. With something solid to hold on to, start standing on one leg with your eyes closed and measure how long you can stand in this situation. The results may surprise even those who believe they have good balance. Longevity researchers believe that good physical balance turns the clock of life back not only physically but functionally as well. The number of seconds you hold this position corresponds to your functional age.

• 28 sec = 25-30 years
• 22 sec = 30-35 years
• 16 sec = 40 years
• 12 sec = 45 years
• 9 sec = 50 years
• 8 sec = 55 years
• 7 sec = 60 years
• 6 sec = 65 years
• 4 sec = 70 years

Functional or functional age is a combination of an individual's physical, mental, emotional and actual chronological ages.

So how to do balance exercises?

When we hear the word balance, we usually think of; either standing on one leg, or trying not to fall on a slippery surface. Although standing on one leg increases our static balance, trying to control a mass on a changing support is a more valid definition for daily life. This type of exercise is called dynamic balance, and it works to increase our abilities in many sports as well as in everyday life. Dynamic balance is very helpful in meeting your fitness goals.

To give an example of balance exercises:

• Put your weight on one leg and lift the other to the side or back
• Walk with one foot just in front of the other, as if the tightrope walker were walking a tightrope.
• Walk with your knee to your stomach with each step
• If you want to do dynamic balance exercises:
• Try to reach up with your arms while standing on one leg.
• While standing on one leg, try to bring the other leg forward.
• You can lunge forward or scissor to the side

To improve these exercises, you can try to hold your position longer, add movement to your pose, close your eyes, or remove your hand from the thing you're using as a support. In addition; It is especially good to strengthen your abdominal, hip and leg muscles and if possible add an aerobic training such as swimming or cycling. Balance exercises are performed in sick individuals, starting from static positions and following the developmental pattern of the movement. For example, from the prone position; kneeling, turning, sitting and standing positions. In each of these phases, the person is tried to perceive the correct position and to restore the correct position by trying to break the balance in each position.

Video games and virtual reality programs strengthen balance

In the future of balance exercises; In recent years, alternative methods and virtual reality (VR) programs called "exergames", which are made using the hand controls of active video games, are also very popular, especially by young people, for fitness and balance. Made works; shows that it can be useful in increasing balance, gait, upper body functionality and manual dexterity.

As we see; Balance exercises, which do not require any equipment, can be done comfortably by anyone who is a beginner at home or outside, and have many benefits, have the capacity to protect not only your musculoskeletal system but also your entire health.