“Really? One key component.” I can hear everyone say. Yes, one key component.
A little background. When you are standing perfectly still, or so you think perfectly still, you are not in fact still. Little stabilizer muscles all through your body are contracting and releasing in little tiny ways to keep you upright. When I say “all over” I mean all over your body from your neck to your arms to your feet. It ain’t just your core!
If you have good balance and someone were to push you hard from the side you would throw your arms out to the side and move them to help get your balance back. If you have bad balance, your arms will immediately go out in a straight stiff position to break your fall. Most likely breaking a wrist, arm, elbow or shoulder. The body is designed to sacrifice any of those to protect your chest cavity of major organs or your head during a fall.
I have clients who come in with great looking bodies of nicely shaped gym built mobilizer muscles. When I put them through their first balance challenges, they can not engage their upper bodies while trying to balance. They have bad balance. Once they can release their upper bodies their balance gets better. This sometimes can take weeks.
So when you do a true balance challenge exercise you need to feel your arms and upper body move. You need to keep them free. No weights. Balance Is Power!
No comments:
Post a Comment