Best 30” Exercises To Improve Balance For Seniors
- Mar 10
- 9 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in December 2024. For the original video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSzy6YT6F5Y&t=41s
Brad: All right, so I want to share with you this short little story. I was walking last week on a trail. It was a little rough, and it was starting to get dark, that dusk time of night. And I've been here many times before, and I'm walking, and all of a sudden I find myself stumbling, and the red light came on in my head. It was like, "What is going on? I've walked here before. What is the problem?" Mike, you got any ideas?
Mike: I think you may have had too much to drink.
Brad: Actually, not so, but that would explain it. So I'm thinking with my head, you know. It's getting dark, so your vision has a lot to do with your balance. So that must be part of it. The trail was a little uneven. So that's the other part of it. And there's one more thing that I actually have to admit.
Mike: What?
Brad: I'm getting a little older. You go over 60 years old, and we all know as therapists, there is a point in your life where your balance starts to decline, and you have to come up and just decide it's here, it's time, what am I going to do about it?
Mike: So we're going to give you the best balance exercises to do at home, and it only takes 30 seconds.
Brad: That's right. We're going to cover all three challenges. The age part. We're going to cover uneven terrain and dim light, which happens all the time at home or outside in the evening.
Mike: So we're going to take a trip down memory lane because we know people want to see Bob.
Brad: That's right. I was straining my memory. I remembered Bob and I made this really good video on how to do your balance, which I'm going to repeat. And I thought, instead of straining my mind, we'll just go down memory lane and show you right for your own eyes. Here we go. Woo-woo-woo-rew-rew-rew-rew.
Brad: Let's assume you've been doing this for a few weeks and you're starting to get pretty good. As a matter of fact, you're so good that you can stand on one foot for 30 seconds and it's pretty stable. And then you go to the other foot, and it's pretty stable.
Brad: You're going to probably find one foot is more stable than the other for another reason. But when you get 30 seconds, then you can go to the advanced mechanism that you're going to add in. And what we're going to do is everything's going to be the same. Handhold, the cupboard, whatever it is, go on one foot. And now, instead of looking at one point, rotate your head to the right, and then rotate your head to the left. And you can tell just by... I'm wiggling. That makes a big difference. But you know, when we walk around in public or in our household, we're walking, and we're looking.
Bob: You're looking around.
Brad: Yep. You're rotating your head. And didn't you say Bob, didn't your mother fall at a family gathering?
Bob: Mother-in-law.
Brad: Oh, mother-in-law. So that was worse yet.
Bob: Yeah.
Brad: Anyways, so rotating the head is the advanced task. Now, if you can hold for 30 seconds and rotate your head, you know you're doing very well, you've advanced through all the goals.
Bob: You are pretty safe.
Brad: Yes. And then you get a treat. You can have a cup of coffee with a mint.
Bob: That's doubtful.
Brad: All right, so very good. I really feel confident that this is gonna help your balance. It's going to help your walking, and yeah, enjoy it. Be careful and be safe.
Brad: Okay, so that covers how to work on your balance. 30-second exercise while standing. Now we want to do something to help your body mimic, or your floor mimic uneven terrain, like you're outside. So, what you can simply do is get a cushion from one of your pieces of furniture. Two or three inches thick. There are these devices called a balance pad. This is by Pete's Choice. Pete evidently is a therapist, and they work really well. You can actually buy one if you want, but you don't need to; simply use a couch cushion. They're only like $22, and we know they're a good product. So what you'll do is you'll put your pad or your Pete's Choice down on the floor. And we're going to repeat the same kind of exercise that we did with Bob for 30 seconds. Now let's see. You can use a stick to hold onto, Mike has the Booyah Stik, a cupboard in front of you, the wall, or a cane. And what I like to do to start out with this is just get a feel for the cushion that you're standing on. It's going to change things automatically. I can feel I'm a little wobbly. And this is how I felt literally when I was walking in that story I told earlier, where I was losing my balance. So that's why these can really help.
Brad: So for 30 seconds, you put your timer out. You can have something to hold onto. If it's too easy, you lift it up and just balance. If 30 seconds is very easy to do without any loss of balance, what you simply do is go on one foot. And now, if we can get a close-up down on the feet here. All right, thanks, Tanner. Watch my ankle. It's really working hard.
Brad: There's a lot of proprioceptive information going to my brain, which is really important for balance. And ankle strengthening, which is really important when walking on uneven terrain. Now I got my cane up, and to do this for 30 seconds, I'm going to struggle. My ankle is already fatigued and getting tired. So this is a really excellent way to work. Uneven terrain balance exercise in your house, ankle strengthening, the whole works. It's great. Mike, do you have any comments on that from your point of view?
Mike: I will say this pillow is a lot easier than the Pete's Choice pad. It's not as firm. If you have a thicker pillow, it might be more of a challenge. But a thinner pillow with my amount of weight isn't really doing a whole lot. It just kind of feels like I'm on the ground.
Brad: Yeah. And that may be different from person to person. If you have memory foam, a scrap of memory foam, two or three inches, that works quite well as well.
Mike: Now this is easy. A recommendation you can try to mimic being outside is actually turning and looking while you're standing, because you could see already this is more challenging for me, as I just made fun of this pad, it's a little harder now.
Brad: Right, as a matter of fact, when I was walking on that trail I mentioned, I did, I looked over across the field, and that's when I stumbled to my right and had that whole flash of becoming old in front of me. So let's go to the next thing. In dim light. How do you compensate or replicate dim lighting outside, or in the house, when you get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom? Simply, we're going to start with the same thing, but without the Pete's Choice or the cushion. On the floor, you can have shoes or without shoes. Your choice. Try it both ways. You'll find out which way is easier or more difficult. Start with both feet, one foot, and then the other foot. Now, to moderate the light, you can do a couple of things. Simply turn some lights off in your house so you can see. Mike just put a pair of shades on, which can also change it.
Brad: And then we'll do the same thing, 30 seconds. Both feet. Have a cane or a stick, or hold onto the wall or a cupboard, whatever it may be. 30 seconds on the other foot, and 30 seconds on the other foot. A neat thing you'll probably find out, well, as a therapist, we think it's neat, is that one side is probably going to be better. It may be a lot better than the other leg. Either way, the leg that's worse, you want to exercise it more and spend more attention on it. So you might want to go instead of 30 seconds, go 60 seconds, two sets of 30. Mike, you have anything to say?
Mike: If that is easy for you, to make it even darker ye you just close your eyes. That totally takes away your perception of vision, which a lot of people as they age, can be very problematic. So make sure you're safe if you're going to go to this level.
Brad: That's right. As a matter of fact, to achieve complete and better safety, take the garbage out of the wall in the room and go up to the corner of the room, and do that so that if you do lose your balance when you close your eyes, you know the walls are there. Makes it much, much safer. Definitely recommend that.
Brad: If you're advanced, you may take your cushion and do it. Now, if you're at this level, you're probably out running around at night without any problem, because this is quite challenging for me at any age. I think even Mike would be challenged at this. And what are you, 25?
Mike: Yeah, sure.
Brad: Actually, I think he's in his thirties or forties.
Mike: Shh!
Brad: All right, so the only other thing we can do, this is a little advanced and a little more, if you do a lot of hiking, is take your pad. Let's see, this is a bonus, this is an extra one. Put it down and have a cupboard on one side for balance, use a cane or a stick, and simply walk over the top of it and back, and backwards. It's important that you go backwards and see if you can feel where your foot is on the pad. Like when I came back, I could feel my heel was off the edge of the pad. And that's good, because sometimes if you have neuropathy or you're feeling and your feet are not so good, you may not even notice that. And it's important that you're aware of that so that you can compensate, use a cane, a walking stick, or whatever it may be. Mike, anything to add on this type of challenge?
Mike: I've actually seen people use a BOSU ball with this. So those half-ball domes, and they step up, and do step downs with that, because that is even squishier than the cushion. But that's for the experts, I would say.
Brad: And actually, we have a video with exercises using the Bosu.
Mike: They have different sizes, just so people are aware.
Brad: So make sure you just do 30 seconds. Don't do all these at once. Just do the one that challenges you, work on that for a week or two, then progress to the next level as you feel comfortable. You may not even progress. Just stick with one level, and it'll really help out. All right, very good. What do we have?
Mike: Full disclosure, I'm not in my forties. Anyway, the last thing is if you want to check out more videos on how to improve your balance, watch
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