All About YOU: Don’t Take the Fall

E-mail

RealAge Tip

Rating: 4 out of 5

Rate It

Add your tip

Last 30 days »

This Week's Tips:

Get Skinny Faster with This Switch

Want to Live to 100? Introduce Yourself

Kick Allergy Symptoms with This Kind of Drink

Choose This Cancer-Fighting Party Dip

3 Steps to a Summer-Ready Backside

See Only Fitness Tips »

Our Most Popular Tips »

Young or old, spry or not -- all of us are going to take the occasional spill. (We know, sometimes it's like the ground just reached up and grabbed your toes!)

Whether you hit the pavement as a result is not about the initial misstep. It's about your ability to right yourself when you lose your balance. And we've got three tips for helping you wobble like a Weeble and not fall down.

3 Ways to Sure and Steady

Choose dumbbells over weight machines. Dumbbells force you to balance the weights as well as lift them. Hint: Tap your balance muscles by doing lunges with weights in your hands. Here's more on the free-weights-vs.-weight-machine debate.
Make like a flamingo. Try doing whatever you're doing on one foot. It will help improve your proprioception -- your awareness of yourself in space -- which leads to better balance. Hint: Brush your teeth or crank out a few bicep curls with this method. Find out how long someone your age should be able to balance on one foot.
Buy a ball. Adding stability-ball exercises to your workout routine tunes up your balance muscles, too. Hint: Try doing crunches, push-ups (hands on the floor and feet on the ball), or leg lifts with it. Here's a great torso and ab toner.

The Ideal Workout
Martial arts are great for your balance, too -- especially this gentle-on-the-joints version.

RealAge Benefit: Strength training can make your RealAge 1 year younger.

References Published on 04/15/2008.

YOU: Staying Young. Roizen, M. F., Oz, M. C., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

EDITOR'S PICK

All things require balance: your diet, your checkbook, your life. But do you ever balance your body? Discover how with a beginner session in tai chi. Good bet you'll find a little peace and serenity, too.

Add RealAge partner Amazon.com to your bookmark favorites.

Click stars to rate.

Rate This Tip

Tips with the highest ratings go on our Most Popular list!

Tips from the RealAge Community MemberTipsIcon

What are your tips and tricks for boosting your balance?

Sort by:

Rich88

12 of 14 people found this helpful.

6/12/2008 4:31:41 PM

Accent the positive; eliminate the negative.

Andree167

15 of 15 people found this helpful.

5/7/2008 3:41:56 PM

Be compassionate and loving towards others. It makes you feel good and eliminates a lot of stress.

Jennie65

8 of 13 people found this helpful.

5/4/2008 4:15:46 PM

To help my balance after one spainal fusion T6 to S1 and revision surgery for a break between L4 and L5, I have found the best way to improv [Show More]