A question of balance

[Brenan225]

As part of rehab for my broken ankle I have to try and balance on the leg that was broken, the goal is 30sec without touching down. I find that I can only go 20sec on my good leg and less on my bad one. So I wonder is this normal for a kinda overweight 39 year old man? With practice will my balance get better? Would better balance help my riding? How long can you balance? Talk amongst yourselves.

[Dobi]

that is about the same time I achieved when I first started trying to improve my balance and stability. One thing you may want to try is pushing your palms together in close to your body, elbows out to the sides, fingers pointed forward. Not sure why this helps but my pilates instructor gave that tidbit to all the newbies in her class. I took pilates up as a way to help me recover from a knee surgery and found it was helpful all around. Not to mention being in a room full of flexible women in spandex

An exercise that I find helps me with my balance is sitting or kneeling on an exercise ball (36cm) while I sit at the computer at home. It takes a while to work up to kneeling on it but is actually comfortable once you are there.

[dirtyboy]

Dobi,

I'll leave the spandex comment to myself......but I was wondering how you kneel on the ball? I've never seen or heard of that before.

And I use a ball to sit on at my desk sometimes too!

[Dakota_c69]

So just standing on one foot you mean??? Hmmmm... if so, apparently I have good balance. So I should be able to stop falling off my dirtbike!!!

[cladoo]

Not to mention being in a room full of flexible women in spandex

Dobi, does your wife know that? I kinda miss the aerobics classes I used to take years ago, it amazes me some of the stuff women wear to these classes, I doubt if some of them would wear the same to bed for their husbands. Brenan225, it can't hurt to try it. I seem to balance okay. I found when I was in rehab for my elbows that the 45mins of stretching at the beginning of each day was the greatest, on top of seeing a massage therapist 3 times a week. I still get a massage about once a month now, but I should get back into stretching more again. Pilates sounds cool, but I think I would enjoy yoga because I liked stretching so much. Now that I am back I also need to go to the gym on a more regular schedule. Hopefully your ankle comes back to normal, it is hard as we get older to heal and the extra weight doesn't help. I plan to lose some weight this winter. Claude

[dirtyboy]

I can do over a minute on either foot in bare feet on the carpet. It's tough to keep that other leg lifted up though.

Any other criteria Brenan?

[cedric]

Well I'm 10 years younger but I am in a constant state of rehab on my left ankle. It seems I have crashed my skateboard and snowboard too many times over the years and my ankle will never be 100% again. I worked on it pretty excessively in the spring, and it helped a lot, I can actually run now! When I was going to physio, I spent a lot of time on a 'wobble board'. Essentially it is a round board with a semi-spherical piece underneath. It takes a bit of practice to be able to stand on it with one foot for a length of time, but it works very well at building up the strength in your ankle. I noticed a pretty significant improvement in just a couple of weeks.

I was also working with an 'indo-board' which is a flat board on a roller tube. You balance the board on the roller and it's another great workout for the ankle, but it takes a bit more balance to 'ride' it and it's much easier to fall off, but it is more fun than a treadmill.

Not sure if any of that helps, just letting you know you are not alone. I don't know if sitting on a ball is going to help your ankle at all, but if you want to work on general balance, I'm sure it can't hurt. Mainly what you need to do is build up strength in your ankle(s).

P.S. I am in no way trained to give you any advice.

[dirtyboy]

P.S. I am in no way trained to give you any advice.

LOL

[thirtyseven]

They are trying to get me to do it with my eyes closed!!!! Apperantly that helps circumvent the brain's input and trains the muscles to react "instinctively" or something. Anything that removes MY brain from the equation is a good thing, but Brennan225 it is tough, especially on a leg that has sustained any kind of injury and has been favoured for a while. I felt like a walrus on land trying to demonstrate my balance infront of a perfectly poised physiotherapist. And while she could balance on anything in any position (easy guys) she would be lousy on a bike of any kind so Im not sure how helpfull the ordeal is. All the work I did on my knee and I still have trouble going stand-sit-stand, and weirdly enough feel uncomfortable using the back brake. Good Luck

[DirtGirl]

keep working at it...it will come!
Strength training and flexability are your friends!! You might need to throw some accupuncture and massage in there to help heal the tissue underneath. I could recomend a great physio that has worked on many of us dirt bikers!

I TRUST THIS GUY WITH MY LIFE!!

[Spinalguy]

Balance.
Mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors contribute greatly to balance.
The largest population of these receptors is in your cervical spinal joints, the second largest population is in your ankle.
Anything we can do to stimulate these receptors will enhance balance. The ear plays a role as well. Our Cerebellar pathways also contribute.
As some have suggested, wobble boards are excellent. i highly reccommend one. Also, Physio and Massage will help as well. Chiro adjustments are most effective as they have direct effects on these receptors at joint level. Many patients experience better balance with cervical (neck) and ankle adjustments.
Swaying tests (Rombergs) will help distinguish where in the nervous system the deficit lies. These tests should be done with eyes open and closed as the absence of sight puts the sole responsibility on the proprioceptive system, particularly in the dorsal columns of the spinal cord.
Tom

[DirtGirl]

HOLY TAKE A BREATH TOM!!!!

[Dobi]

Dobi,

I'll leave the spandex comment to myself......but I was wondering how you kneel on the ball? I've never seen or heard of that before.

And I use a ball to sit on at my desk sometimes too!

Don't worry boy's, I didn't sign up for Pilates all by myself. My wife took/dragged me their and stayed for the entire classes to ensure I didn't run off to the arcade with my money. She is also enrolled in the classes.

I have also taken yoga which is good for flexibility and useless acts of balancing while pretending to "be the tree" but find Pilates is a better overall workout with a focus on core stability. Kneeling on the ball is just that, start with yourself hanging onto something and roll up onto it. I have seen people stand and do squats on these things, it is possible. wobble boards are a much safer alternative and are more often endorsed by proffesionals. I have even had a physiotherapist incoporate wobble boards into my shoulder rehab.

I must agree with spinalguy in that a steady regiment of chiro, massage, and accupuncture all work together to achieve "balance" in every sense of the word.