Strength & Balance exercises to reduce the risk of a fall

From the age of about 35 the muscles in the body begin to lose their mass and strength if they're not exercised regularly and then over the course of many years this muscle atrophy starts to have a negative effect on our balance and increases the risk of a fall. So this video, more appropriate to seniors or for those with neuromuscular conditions, is a gentle program you can follow to help maintain or even improve your strength and balance. Hi everyone and welcome to Exercise for Health. I'm Richard and today I have a gentle routine to stimulate the leg muscles and the brain to reduce your risk of a fall. If you're new to this channel we offer tips, advice and exercises to help you manage your health condition with physical activity. So go ahead and tap the subscribe button below and the bell icon if you want to be notified when we upload a new video. So to take part in this program you will need a bit of floor space, a chair that is firm and not too low such as a dining room chair that you can place against the wall for stability and another chair, a table or something sturdy that you can hold on to for support while conducting some of the exercises. Most movements will be done slowly to really target the muscles for strength and balance purposes so it shouldn't get you too breathless. However it is important that you conduct the exercises at a pace and level that is right for you. So while I'm demonstrating the exercises if you think you can do more or need to do less than what I'm doing then that's absolutely fine but safety with these exercises should always be your priority. Do not put yourself in a position that compromises your ability or your balance. Right you can pause the video whenever you want so get what you need and we'll get started. Right then to begin these exercises in this routine we need to be in a standing position so if you're already standing just stay as you are but if you're sat down like me then I want you to walk your hips forwards to the front half of your chair. Make sure your feet are hips width wide and you've got your toes just underneath the knees. So use your support if you need to to get yourself to a standing position but what I want you to do is lean the torso forwards, feel the pressure come through the feet and then keep leaning forwards to try and lift your bottom up off the seat and then bring your hips up and forwards so you're up into that standing position. Great once you're up keep holding your support if you need it but I want you to start with a gentle walk on the spot. So just to get the feet moving we're obviously transferring your weight from left to right so it does mean that we're on one foot for a very small period of time. Just get that movement going so if you can do this without holding on to your support that's great so you can just get the arm action with the foot action. Good so just take it at a pace that feels right for you. Some people walk faster some people walk slower so whatever feels right for you. So we're going to progress this movement to make it a little bit harder and this is where you might need to hold on to the support if you need it but we're going to do a little bit more of a knee raise. So we're still transferring the weight from left to right but now we're spending a longer period of time on that one foot which makes it a little bit more challenging for your balance. Good again just take it at your own pace you only lift the knee up as high as you feel comfortable. Good okay right let's bring the feet down to a standstill. So for the next one we're going to be moving from side to side so this time it's probably better to have your support in front of you so either move it around in front of you or just turn your body angle so you've got the support in front. For the purpose of this so you can see what I'm doing I'm going to keep it out of the way to the side. So we're going to do some side steps so for this make sure you're stood up nice and tall first of all. If I'm going to move to my left then it means I need to move my left foot first so I take a step out to the side with my left foot and then my right foot then follows until I've got my feet a shoulder width wide again and then to go back to the right I lead with my right foot take a step out to the right and then my left foot follows until again they're about shoulder width wide. So keep all your support as you do this move into the left and then one step to the right. So again just take it at your own pace make sure with this one you're not bringing the feet too close together. So we're just getting the brain to realise you're moving left and right so lateral movement makes it a little bit more challenging than just walking on the spot. Good now if you can what we're going to do is make the steps slightly bigger and slightly slower. So again it just means we're taking a little bit more time being on one foot as we move the other foot out to the side. So we're driving off the support foot as you take the step out to one side. So this is getting those muscles around the hips working a bit more to strengthen those muscles up. Just slow big steps again keep all your support if you need it. Great okay right let's bring it back. So again you want your support for this next one because now we're starting to work a bit more on your balance. So to start off with I want you now bring your feet completely together so we're really narrowing your base of support and we're going to do some head turns. Now this challenges your vestibular system so it might compromise your balance a little bit which is why I want to make sure that you're holding on to the support to one side. So while you're up nice and tall all you need to do is just nod your head left and right like you're saying no. Again just work to your range of movement and if you feel confident enough that that's not compromising your balance that you don't need to hold to the support then great. You can just keep your hand hovering over it if need be. Good nice steady movement hopefully that's not compromising your balance too much. You can maintain good posture while you do it. Good okay let's bring the head back face in the front. Right we're going to go on to the next one which is to be in the tandem stance so this is really going to start to challenge your balance now. So again support needs to be just to one side but we're going to have one foot directly in front of the other. So I've got the heel of my left foot practically touching the toes of my right foot so it's kind of like I'm standing on a tightrope and then make sure that you've got the same amount of weight on each foot so you're not putting all your weight onto the back foot or onto the front foot so you should feel through the weight through the through the feet that you've got about the same amount of weight on each foot same amount of pressure going through each foot. So keeping hold of the support for a second but if you can I want you to start to see if you can release your hand away from it and just see if you can balance in that tandem stance. Now if you're finding that difficult straight away what you can do is you can modify the foot position just to have the heel to the side of the toes rather than directly in front of the toes so you have the heel just to one side you do it that way which should make it slightly easier. Again just see if we can balance there for a few seconds and if you're finding this particularly easy and you think I don't know what the problem is Rich this is easy so what you can try and do then is have it with your eyes closed see if you can still balance again keep your hand very very close to the support so you can just grab it if needed just trying to stay balanced in that position for a few seconds okay right let's stop there let's switch the feet around and see if it makes any difference the other way. So I'm going to have the opposite foot in front now so again heel to toe or if you're doing the modified version heel just to the side of the big toe again up nice and tall make sure you've got an even weight distribution over each foot keep the hand on the support for a second and then if you think your balance is okay you can start to let go of your support see if you can balance again if you're finding it's not very challenging then you can do it with your eyes closed to make it a little bit more of a challenge so we're taking away that sensory input of the vision which obviously affects balance for a few seconds okay good right then bring the feet back just sort of walk those feet out a little bit because your feet might have tightened up slightly so just hold that for a second right the next one we're going to do is go on to what's called flamingos so with this one I'm going to turn to the side to show you but you still want your support to one side of you so I'm going to be standing on my right foot so my support is to my right but it's my left foot that's going to be doing the movement my left leg's going to be doing the movement so the motion is while I'm up tall standing on one leg with the support to that same side I'm going to lift the opposite foot off the floor and with the leg straight I want you to take out in front of you really focus on pulling the forefoot back towards you and then we're going to hold it there for about a second or so and then we're going to return it back behind you so extending the hip when it won't go back any further I want you to then bend the knee and you're going to hold that position for a second or two again keeping the forefoot pulled back so we're not pointing the toes keep the forefoot pulled back and then return to the front again so kick out to the front hold it there for a second and then take the leg behind bend in the knee heel up towards the bottom hold it there for a second so that's your motion just going from the front hold and then to the back lift hold while you keep hold of your support again if you're getting quite good you can rely less on the support so you're putting more of the emphasis on the support leg to try and maintain your balance just holding that position at the front there it's going to stimulate the muscles on the front of the leg and then as we take it back and bend the knee we're really targeting these muscles on the back of the leg these hamstring muscles so we're just trying to use a bit of strength while we're in this balanced position at the same time again just do it at a pace that feels right for you pause in for a second or two at each point at the end of the motion right okay relax okay let's turn around so you can do the same on the other side so i'm going to do my right leg now so that means my support is to the left because i'm going to be on my left foot so same motion as we did before so we're getting that leg to go straight in front keeping the forefoot pulled back towards you and then as the leg then goes behind extending the hip as far as you can bend the knee bringing the heel of the foot up towards your bottom hold it there for a second and then straighten the leg lift up to the front hold take it back bend the knee hold so it's really important that when we're doing the knee bend when we've got the leg further back we don't want the knee to come forwards again we want to try and make sure the knee stays behind the level of the hip as you're bringing the heel up towards your bottom so we can really target this muscle on the back of the leg here otherwise it will kind of deactivate a little bit of this here so you want to make sure that the hip is extended so that means the knee needs to be pulled back while you're bending the knee to really target the muscle on the back of the leg so slow and steady movement again as before if your balance is quite good you don't have to rely so much on the support you can take your hand away from that one if you want to just do a few more you should feel the muscles around the support leg working just as much as the muscles on this leg hopefully right then good let's bring that back and then bring yourself back round okay the next one we're going to do is a five point toe tap so again for this one you want your support to one side it's again it's relying a little bit more on balance of the support leg while we're moving the other leg but rather than moving it in a forward backward plane now we're going to be moving that foot out in various different directions so five points effectively we're going to do one to the front one of 45 degree angle to the front one out to the side 145 degrees going further back and then one straight back behind you so make sure you have got enough space around you in that arc shape for you to be able to move your foot in and out too so i'm going to keep hold of the support for the first go so i'm putting all my weight on that support leg that's closest to the chair and then with the other foot i just want you to reach out so if you do a toe tap in front on the floor and then bring it back and we're going to go 45 degrees to the front toe tap and then bring it back now we're going directly straight out to the side toe tap and then back to the middle 45 degrees now to the back toe tap back to the middle and we're going straight directly straight back so toe tap behind and bring it back to the middle right now we've done it one way around we're going to reverse it we're going to start the back and we'll bring it around to the front so starting backwards straight back controlled if you don't need to use the chair try and do this so we're relying mostly on your balance 45 degrees to the back the middle out to the side back to the middle 45 degrees to the front back to the middle and then straight forwards back to the middle good excellent right let's try that on the other foot over that side so same process again we're going to start the front and go around clockwise this time and then we'll reverse it and come around the opposite way so make sure you've got the support close to you if you need it all the way on that foot that's closest to your support and then starting off reaching out in front toe tap straight forwards bring it back to the middle now we're going 45 degrees toe tap back to the middle then straight out to the side toe tap back to the middle 45 degrees to the back back to the middle and then directly straight back toe tap back to the middle good let's reverse that so we're going from the back to the front make sure this support knee does bend a little bit as you're taking the foot in the different points but just be sure it doesn't start to collapse inward so it's always staying over the foot so let's go backwards toe tap to the center 45 degrees to the back to the center straight out to the side to the center good 45 degrees to the front and then straight forwards good excellent right then let's bring the support back round out the way we're going to go into sit to stands now so this is where you want to be using the chair that you've got back against the wall and the support just needs to be on one side if you think you're going to need it so sit yourself down on your chair and to start off with like we did at the start to get you to stand up i want you to make sure that your hips are on the front half of your chair so you're not sat right the way back into the chair using the back support just walk your hips towards the front half of the chair make sure that your feet are a hips width wide and make sure that the toes are directly underneath the knees so we don't want the feet too far forwards otherwise you're going to struggle to stand up so do bring the feet back but the feet should be completely flat on the floor from the heels of the feet to the balls of the feet use the support if you need it but this is a really good functional strength exercise so we want to try and rely as much as we can on the muscles in the legs to get you to a standing position so only use that if you need more so for balance purposes so what we're going to do from there is i'm going to lean the body forwards to start to put the pressure through the feet and then you need to continue to move nose over the toes even further so i can start to get the hips to just gently hover off the seat at that point i'm going to keep putting pressure through the floor like i'm pushing the floor away from me as the hips come forwards and i bring myself to an upright position and then to reverse it it's the opposite so i'm going to start to bend at the hips first so i'm going to push the bottom backwards allowing my body to go forwards and then begin to bend the knees to lower myself down until i get my bottom just hovering off the seat until i can fill the seat and then i'm back to a seated position so as we do this we're going to try and drive up with a little bit more power but we're going to really focus on doing this slow descent phase to really start to work into your strength so set yourself up ready we'll do it again so leaning the body forwards and then start to lift the bottom off the seat feel the pressure through the feet push the floor away from you drive your hips up and forwards to get yourself standing and then reversing it bending at the hips first sticking the bottom backwards allowing the chest to come forwards a little bit and then begin to bend the knees so you're slowly lowering yourself down until you're back into the chair good right again use your support if you need it on the way up so lean the body forwards let's drive up with a little bit more power this time so lean forwards as soon as your hips come off the seat power the hips up and forwards make sure you get your balance when you're at the top and then reverse it really slow on the way down so bottom backwards slow slow slow slow slow bending the knees control that descent don't just slump into the chair so you control yourself back into the chair brilliant let's try one more so lean the body forwards keep going keep going keep going start to lift the hips up and then drive the hips up and forwards get your balance at the top reversing it going back down slow and steady bending at the hips first allow the chest to come forward slightly as your bottom goes back and begin to bend the knees more slowly control control control until you're back into your chair brilliant well done right then the next one we're going to do and this is going to be the last one is we're going to do a get yourself to a standing position but as soon as we're standing we're going to take a step straight away so for this first one we're going to step forwards with your left foot so that means we're going to stagger your feet before you even start while you're sat down so i want your left foot to move slightly further backwards more so than what it was so rather having them side by side like they were for the sit to stands we're going to bring this left foot backwards just a little bit and move the right foot forwards just a little bit so they're just slightly staggered again slightly offset you might need your support for this one but the purpose this time is as soon as i power myself up to standing rather than just trying to stay stationary i'm actually going to take a step with this left foot which is why i've taken it further back so just as a demonstration i'm going to get you to lean forwards power up and then take a step and then from there once we've got your balance we'll then take that foot back to where it was and then we'll slowly lower you back down into your chair again so set your feet up ready use your support if you need it which should be on the opposite side to the foot that you're going to be taking forwards so i've got that to my right so left foot's further back right foot slightly further forwards get yourself ready and then from there you're going to lean the body forwards and then power yourself up and then take a step good bring that foot back slowly lower yourself back down into your chair reset yourself and then we'll go again just make sure your feet in the right position so the left one slightly further back the right one slightly further forwards so again same thing we're going to lean the body forwards and then power up and then as soon as you're up that left foot's going to take a step straight forward so it's quite a functional movement so lean the body forwards power up and then take a step make sure you've got your balance at that point bring that foot back and then slowly lower yourself back down good right we'll do one more on this side but on this one just to make it a little bit more tricky we're going to step rather than going straight forwards we're actually going to step slightly out to the side so we're going off on a 45 degree angle a little bit so if you do need to move your support a little bit a bit further around to the front because we are going to go off on an angle as we're going to be stepping with the left foot rather than going straight forwards we're going to go slightly out to the left so we're going to change the direction slightly so get yourself ready make sure your feet in the right position lean the body forwards and then when you've got the weight over the feet power yourself up and then you're going to step out on an angle so i've just gone on this 45 degree angle bring the foot back and then slowly lower yourself back down fantastic right we need to do that on the other side so let's switch the feet over and i'm also going to move my support onto the opposite side as well so now i've got my right foot set slightly further back and the left foot set slightly further forward so they're just slightly offset in that way so that then when i've got myself to the standing position i'm then going to use the right foot to take a step forwards as soon as i'm up so set yourself up lean the body forwards use the support if you need it power through and then take a step brilliant bring that foot back slowly lower yourself back down so still working on the muscles in that strength on that slow descent right readjust your position if you need to make sure your feet in the right place let's do another one of those going straight forwards so lean the body forwards pull the weight over the feet drive yourself up as soon as you stand in take a step straight forwards brilliant make sure you've got your balance take a step back slowly lower back down right one more so this time we're going to go out to the right on a bit of an angle so if you need to just bring your support a bit further round so last one make sure your feet are in the right place lean the body forwards power yourself up turn and then step on an angle brilliant bring it back and then slowly lower yourself back down good well done and that completes your routine good work i hope you enjoyed these exercises today if so please give it a like by clicking the thumbs up button below i will leave some links in the description below for some other gentle programs you can follow that might also interest you thank you so much for watching and remember to stay active and keep moving to feel better thank you for watching if you enjoyed this video today please give it a thumbs up you can also click here to subscribe to this channel or click here to watch a recent video see you soon