Is Balance Trainable?

Balance is a trainable skill, just like riding a bike or playing the guitar. You get better with practice.

Most people don’t view it that way. Instead, they figure balance is something that’s good when you’re younger and just deteriorates as you get older. But balance is indeed trainable with the right balance exercises.

Think about a female gymnast that you may have seen in the Olympics on TV. They are able to run down a 4-inch wide balance beam, jump in the air and do a spinning flip and still land balanced on the beam.

Is this because they were born with a genetic disposition to have incredible balance? I think not! These girls practice every day for hours for years and years to be able to do these things. They start on a beam that is just a few inches on the ground, and they start with simple movements like walking forward and backward.

Over the years they progress to more and more advanced movements and to the standard-height beam. What’s happening during all that practice is the part of the brain that controls balance is learning how to control and coordinate the muscles and communicate with the sensors of the foot better.

The brain appears to have an almost unlimited potential to keep getting better at balance. Just take a look at high wire performers in the circus. That wire is probably only a quarter inch thick, not to mention fifty feet off the ground, and they make it look easy.

Practice.

Now what do you think would happen if a gymnast stopped practicing on the beam for a year? Do you think they would be able to get back up on the beam and do a spinning flip with a perfect landing? No. The brain’s balance center would have gotten rusty over that year.

Let me ask you this: Are you practicing balancing as often as you did when you were younger? Do you think that maybe your brain is a little rusty at balancing because of disuse? If that is true, and keeping in mind the analogy of the gymnast, doesn’t it make sense that if you practiced balancing more you could also improve?

The great thing is that you don’t have to spend as much time practicing as the gymnast or the high wire performer. You’re just hoping you can walk around on flat ground without falling over, which is much less demanding on the brain that walking on a balance beam.

But you still need regular practice several times a week. The Balance Manual can show you how to do that.


Click here to get started training your balance.