Originally Posted by
taai gihk yahn
more importantly, standing on one leg with eyes closed - this trains proprioception of the ankle, which is the single most important defense against falling when there is a rapid displacement of the center of mass: when the muscles around ur ankles (gastrocs, peroneals, tibialis) feel a force that has sufficient acceleration and velocity to move the center of mass outside of the base of support, they should contract to counteract that immediately (called an ankle strategy) - if they fail to do so in time, then u have to either stick ur hips out or take a step (hip strategy and stepping strategy respectively), which creates more chances of falling; most people start progressively losing this ability in adulthood, and so start to over-rely on vision, which is the second system that keeps u in balance (the thrid being vestibular, but that's relatively much slower than the first two in terms of reaction time, so really isn't a factor with accommodating quick perturbations); this works fine for as long as your vision is unimpaired; the problems begin when people loose visual capacity, and now their proprioception is gone as well; because of this, they fell unsteady, resulting in a fear of falling - and statistically it's been shown that fear of falling actually increases the likelihood of a fall!
so by training single leg standing with eyes closed, u r eliminating visual input and relying solely on proprioception; doing this for at least 10 seconds per foot once a day should be enough to keep it trained (even if u did it less frequently, I think it wud b fine); also, doing it on an unstable surface would be even better, as this really engages the ankle muscles in a very robust manner;
I have most patients do this, and since I have to show people how to do it, it gives me a chance to do it fairly regularly as well
absolutely. whenever I train older people who are new to working out, I begin them with progressive balance training. most people take balance for granted because they walk without falling and have their vision.
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