The Only Seated Exercises That Improve Balance & Stop Falls

This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in February 2025. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/GN3dIBA7h-c

Brad: Whoa! Tough balancing.

Brad: We are actually going to show you how to improve your balance, as well as reduce your fall risk while sitting in a chair.

Mike: So, we're going to go over a couple of exercises and two other options that don't actually involve exercise, but feel good on your feet.

Brad: And they're done while sitting. This is good information, and they're legitimate exercises.

Mike: So, Brad, we're talking about falling and feet, actually.

Brad: Right. What do the feet have to do with balance and falls? That's the whole thing. This is something that any therapist, doctor, or trainer typically understands the importance of your feet with your balance, particularly your forefoot and five digits, or your toes. So, that's what we're going to get into right away.

Mike: Now, instead of boring you to death with all the literature on this, we will talk briefly about 3 studios, and you can follow the links to learn more.

Brad: Right, so we're going to go through the three studies that we found and just briefly go over them so you can really understand. This is scientific evidence. Not just something we've made up. The first study emphasizes the importance of the toes, particularly the great toe, the big one, for balance in older adults.

Mike: The second one found altered toe alignment with older adults. Meaning, things like bunions and hammer toes can directly affect your balance and make it poor.

Brad: And finally, the strength of the toes. They've studied how stronger toes increase your stability and reduce the likelihood of falls. Now, keeping all that in mind, I want to talk about just our feet in general. Think about it. For the last 40, 50, 60 years, however old you are, you've been putting your feet in a little compartment. Typically, they're pointed like this, and they scrunch your toes up into a tiny little compartment all day long.

Brad: The toes don't have a chance to move. They get weaker as a result of our footwear. We're going to cover that as well. We really need to address and treat our feet and forefeet appropriately. It's very easy and does not take much time. So, this shoe actually makes my foot hurt so bad after a couple of hours, I have to take them off and massage them. I did it at a Christmas party this year. My wife said, "What are you doing, taking your shoes off?" My foot's killing me.

Mike: You just need some better dress shoes, I guess.

Brad: I know it, I know it.

Mike: So, should we get into the first option?

Brad: Yeah.

Mike: What you can do is actually some exercises and stretches.

Brad: There you go. Now again, in the chair, that's what we're talking about. We're going to stretch the toes, we're going to extend them. And oftentimes, we need to think about going the opposite direction. My toes are a little tight in flexion. So, take all of them and stretch down. You're going to do it until it hurts a little bit. You don't want to tear the tendons off, the bone, or anything like that, but you want to get aggressive enough where you're stretching it. A little pain is okay. Hold and then come back and stretch the other direction.

Brad: And I would definitely emphasize the big, or medically we call it the great toe, and work on that one, because that one is the most influential in regards to your balance and your gait quality. So, work on that. Whoa! It really works nicely. And now, if you have a couple of toes that you know are tight or they're hammer-toeing, they're starting to curl in, work on those individually in extension or going up to help keep that range of motion.

Mike: Now, some people have trouble getting their feet up to their hands like that.

Brad: Good point, Mike.

Mike: So you can try to work on your toes in the seated position. You have to try to get your toes underneath your foot, and you just kind of roll it forward for flexion. And you're going to have to actually use your other foot to try to extend it up.

Brad: You can do it this way.

Mike: Or you could do it that way, yes. Just moving your foot around like this. So a couple of different options there.

Brad: There you go. Let's go to the next thing, which is once you range them, take about a minute or so on each foot, then we need to strengthen. Remember, I talked about strength really improving your balance capabilities and your gait. So, what we're going to do is you can lift up your toes as high as you can. Do that 10 times. And you can do this with your shoes on, but probably best with them off so you can see what's going on and get a better range of motion.

Brad: Now, flexion or going down is actually where we really want to work on strength. So, there are a couple of options we can do. If you have a dice, like that's a small dice, Mike.

Mike: It is small.

Brad: It's called a die.

Mike: It is when it's one.

Brad: Yeah. There you go. Show them how to work. This is kind of a fun thing. You can make a little game out of it.

Mike: So, it's pretty hard to do with your little toes, but you can try. So, you try to grab it with your toes, curl them, and pick them up. So, typically, you can do this with marbles as well.

Brad: Sure.

Mike: If you have marbles. You can use your big toe, which might be a little more challenging. This die is so small. Typically, what you do is you pick them up and then place them in another spot. So, normally, you'll have numerous ones. We only have one die.

Brad: Well, typically, I think the games call for five dice.

Mike: Yeah. Yahtzee has five. So, you can just work on trying to grab them and make sure to do this with each foot. It's pretty hard to do this with socks. I don't even know if I can because the die is slippery, so you're probably going to do this barefoot.

Brad: Yep. Yeah, so I'm thinking you know, they could play Yahtzee with their toes. Just make it part of the game and have a bunch of people. Anyways, the next option, being a little more serious, on a smooth floor, this works best. So, I'm going to use this to represent a smooth floor. If you're doing it on carpeting, it doesn't work as well. And you'll see why. Put a towel down, and the goal is to put your foot here, and I'm going to try to pull the towel underneath my foot using my toes. So, I'm going to curl my toes and pull the towel.

Brad: Ooh, see how I'm getting the towel closer? And you have to be careful because when you first start this, if you haven't done it, there's a good possibility these little muscles in here are going to cramp up, and it's painful. Toe cramps are not fun. If they do start to cramp, what you're going to want to do is bring your foot back like this and stretch it.

Brad: Or if you're able to do the figure-four, pull them like that, and then stop, give it a break till the next day. We do not want to deal with cramps. Actually, there's a nice massage. We're going to show you how to do it in just a second to help alleviate the cramp pain. All right. Okay, once you've stretched and exercised or strengthened your toes, we're going to do a little more mobilization. In other words, we're going to work the joints at the base of your foot. There are actually tarsals, five of them. Those bones are not glued together. However, after being stuck in shoes for all our lives, sometimes they lose their mobility. So, we can go here and actually try to separate and move those bones from each other. This is called mobilization. Go between each toe and work it back and forth.

Brad: There's a lot easier way to do this. I'm going to show you so you don't have to grab your feet like this. But it works well. This is a very common thing to do. And you just really try and mobilize that whole forefoot. It actually feels good and increases circulation. It's a healthy thing to do for your foot, as well as for your balance. Balance and reducing fall risk. There we go. So, the trick to doing this the easy way, and this is one of my favorite things to do at home, is if you happen to have a massage gun, which a lot of people do now, there are quite a few of them out there. I'm going to use a round head on the Q2 massage gun.

Mike: I'm going to use the airhead on the C2 massage gun.

Brad: He's going to use the airhead. So, it's a little soft. The airhead's probably the thing to use if you haven't used it before. If you like heat or cold on it, we do have guns like the C2 Pro model that actually heat up and cool down, and it stays that way while you're massaging. And that's strictly up to you. But the whole process is to use a reciprocating massage head. And I almost always go on the bottom because the top, you have bones. You don't want to massage bones. And just work back and forth. I like to work it down into the plantar fascia.

Brad: There we go. And if you want to make it less aggressive as opposed to going straight in like I am, you simply use a round head; this is very effective. Go at an angle, and it's less aggressive. And boy, it really does a nice job. I go right on, especially the great toe, and you can work on each individual toe like playing a piano.

Brad: So seriously, you may want to spend a minute or two on each foot. Now, it should feel good. And when you're done, your foot will just kind of tingle, and it just feels like a real nice massage. It's a good way to, like I say, mobilize and do it without making your fingers and your hands hurt.

Mike: But tip number four, which Brad kind of talked about earlier, is the importance of footwear. I mean, I like to think of footwear as kind of like a temporary cast you wear, you know, eight hours a day. Your foot is being cast. If you're ever in a cast, you're stuck. You can't move. So if you have a cast that's narrower, it's going to squish your toes together. You can look at this normal shoe here and then see a wide toe box shoe on this side. And you could see the difference in how much room you have for your toes to actually separate. You're not supposed to have scrunched-up feet.

Brad: Most of our shoes are designed and manufactured with a narrow toe. But you can find, and they're getting more popular, we call it the wide toe box. So your feet, your forefoot can splay out, it can breathe, improve circulation, and comfort. And you know, until the marketing gets it so that these are cool and people are buying them left and right, you just have to buy them as we do. And people say, "What are you wearing there?"

Mike: Yeah, these are pretty thin ones like Brad has. You can buy them if you like more cushioning underneath.

Brad: Yep.

Mike: It is the same amount of height off the ground from the forefoot to the back foot with these. But there is more cushioning if you don't like feeling the ground beneath you.

Brad: Right, so if you go to a store, you go online looking for shoes, you know, look for a wide toe box shoe. That should get you to this genre of footwear.

Mike: They normally are zero drop as well.

Brad: Oh.

Mike: Because some variants just make wide shoes, so we don't want them to get confused.

Brad: Now, we're getting into the weeds. But no, you're absolutely right. So, footwear is very critical. Crocs are the cheapest wide-toe box type of footwear that I'm aware of. In the summertime, I wear them all the time. It feels great.

Mike: Yeah, they're pretty nice. I have one, but mine are insulated, so I can wear them during winter.

Brad: Oh, sure.

Mike: Yeah, I'm fancy.

Brad: Always one step up. What other videos can these people go to if they're unsatisfied with the volume of incredible knowledge that we just spewed for them?

Mike: Volume. So, if you want more balance videos, watch "Top 3 Balance Exercises for Seniors to Do." So, this video's a little bit different.

Brad: There you go. Always more information for you. Thanks for watching. Have a good day. And enjoy your feet.

Mike: Make sure they don't stink.

Brad: Why, Mike?