In 2022, a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by Araujo et al. found that, among adults ages 51–75, inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds was associated with an 84% higher risk of death from any cause in an adjusted analysis. Participants were followed for a median of seven years.
Within a short period of time, social media went bananas about how this “Stork Test” was the ultimate predictor of longevity, and it was all people were talking about for a while. However, balance is so much more than the ability to stand still.
The Balance Myth
For years in the physical therapy clinic, I would tick the box of checking a person’s balance by assessing whether they could stand on one leg for 10 seconds or not, grading them Excellent, Good, Fair, or Bad. If they scored Excellent or Good, I would repeat with the eyes closed and for the most part, that was it.
Over the years of teaching LYT and watching my parents age, I’ve become more and more aware of how balance is not just a static skill. It’s a dynamic skill consisting of multiple systems working well together under a variety of conditions.
Your Body’s Balance System
Keeping your balance is a dynamic skill that requires your nervous system, eyes, inner ear, proprioceptors, and muscles to work together.
Your nervous system relies on input from your eyes (vision), inner ear (vestibular system that detects head rotation, gravity, and linear acceleration), and the muscles and joints (proprioceptive receptors that provide feedback about where your limbs are in space).
Once the brain interprets all of this sensory input, it sends rapid signals down the motor pathways to reflexively react appropriately. The vestibulo-ocular reflex automatically orients your eyes in the opposite direction of your head movements to keep your vision steady while balancing. The vestibulospinal reflex adjusts your muscle tone, posture, and limb positioning to prevent falls or stumbles when your center of gravity shifts.
Strength Meets Stability
The joints and muscles of the feet, hips, and trunk work together as a kinetic chain to keep the body upright and stable. Your feet create a stable base of support, requiring the strength to grip the floor, sensation to detect subtle shifts in the center of gravity, and neuromuscular control to respond to uneven surfaces.
Your muscles and joints of your hips, particularly the glutes, keep the pelvis level when transferring weight from one leg to the other or in a single leg stance. The deep rotators of the hip control the knees, keeping them from collapsing inward and helping to transmit ground forces up into the trunk.
A strong and stable trunk (core) ensures that the upper body (about ⅔ of your body weight) doesn’t cause the system to topple over while reaching or the upper body to tilt erratically when the lower body moves suddenly beneath it. There’s a smooth transfer of energy between the upper and lower body through the trunk in order to maintain balance.
Dynamic Balance Exercises: How to Train Balance in Motion
Simply looking at the ability to stand still is only measuring a piece of the puzzle. For older adults, balance tests can help identify fall risk, but keeping your balance while turning your head, shifting your weight, reaching, and changing direction is a more relevant way to test balance as it relates to daily life. The CDC recommends that adults 65 and older include balance activities in their weekly routine. So if we really want to train balance, we should address multiple systems that are involved at once.
Some simple ways to take the Stork Test (standing on one leg) and add more functional challenges to it include:
- Turning the head left and right
- Standing on a pillow or foam block
- Turning the head left and right while standing on the foam block
You can also add more dynamic components of weight shifting and reaching activities to the Stork Test, such as:
- Tapping the toes of the foot that is off the floor out in front of you, then to the side, and then behind you, all while keeping the weight balanced over the standing foot.
- Bending down and reaching to pick up cones one at a time that you’ve placed a couple of feet away and in a circle around you, while standing on one leg.
- Transitioning between single leg stance and Airplane pose in a slow and controlled manner.
- Stepping to the side into a Side Lunge and pushing right back up into a single leg balance hold.
These dynamic balance exercises are just a few ways to challenge and train your balance more functionally. Try them near a stable support, such as a wall or countertop, and choose a challenge that feels safe for you. A little creativity and the sky is the limit.
Explore LYT classes that work on balance and stability or learn more about the LYT approach to movement.
The Bigger Picture
Balance isn’t about not wobbling while in Tree Pose or Half Moon. It’s about developing the capacity to respond quickly and more accurately to both expected and unexpected changes in your center of gravity and body position. The best news is that balance can be trained at any age. Although balance training may feel like it’s just for seniors, it helps younger people and athletes optimize performance and prevent sports-related injuries. Having good movement quality and better awareness of where you are in space, aka balance, keeps us more agile and resilient at any age.
