Balance is about more than standing on one leg
Welcome to the weekly warble here at Ideanthro Movement.
This week I'm talking about why there's more to balance practice than standing on one leg.
If you're looking to improve your balance, you've likely seen articles advocating standing on one leg as a way to improve your balance. This is a good suggestion, but it's not the best suggestion.
The problem here isn't standing on one leg. Standing on one leg is great for your balance. The problem is that the best results happen when you practice a variety of different types of balance.
Here are two reasons why:
1) Balance isn't a single skill. It's a group of closely related, but uniquely different skills. It takes slightly different skills to walk on a flat balance beam compared to a round one, and different skills again to walk those beams if they're wobbly. And it takes a very different skill set to regain your balance after you trip over a toddler who sat on the floor behind you without you noticing. Thus, if you want to have good all around balance you need to practice a variety of different types of balance. Standing on one leg is great, but we want to add a couple of other options.
2) When we practice any one type of balance, and standing on one leg is an example here, there's a chance that we find strange compensatory patterns to work around our weaknesses. We can use those compensatory patterns to get very good at that one skill, but they might not cross over well to other forms of balance. Here's an example.
To stand on one leg well, your body should use a variety of hip, leg, ankle and foot muscles (including your glutes) in coordination with each other to keep your balance. But you can also find pretty good balance on one leg by squeezing your quadricep muscles, locking out your knee and gripping the ground with your toes. The problem is that while that pattern works well enough when standing on one leg, it doesn't transfer well to other forms of balance. Practising a variety of different types of balance reduces the risk that you find one compensatory pattern to solve the issue, and increases the chances that you develop good movement patterns.
Have a lovely day
Cheers
Jack
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