This Falls Prevention Awareness Week we want to share some research that the Les Mills website shared in their article, Build your balance – Les Mills Nordic.
They discussed whether having poor balance can have detrimental effects on your health. They suggested that among working to generally improve your health, you should challenge yourself to try the Flamingo test. Read on to learn more…
It is said that your ability to stand like a flamingo can reveal many aspects of your health. We will share some of the findings discussed in the article and what it takes to improve your balance in the rest of this post.
DOES HAVING POOR BALANCE ACTUALLY LEAD TO DEATH?
“Doctors have been testing balance as a measure of health for many years… We know that balance is one of the first things to decline as we age. The study participants proved this. Most who were older than 70 couldn’t last 10 seconds standing on one leg. Regardless of your age, weight, sex, and health, what the study made clear is that your inability to sustain the balance test is linked to nearly double the death rate. There is an 84% higher risk of dying during the seven-year study period.”
According to the article “falls are the second biggest cause of accidental death (after traffic accidents). Poor balance and falls often go hand in hand.” It is often the case that after a fall an older person who has other health issues will have a harder time recovering. This is due to a lack of mobility, so reducing the risks of falling is a great way to combat this.
Therefore, this recent study “didn’t identify falls as a specific cause of death. Most of the study participants who died during the study died due to cancer, heart disease, or respiratory diseases.” With that said it is important to reduce the chances of a fall and improve your recovery if one does occur.
What training should you do?
They say that “balance-based training is one of the four types of exercise that everyone should be doing (the others are strength, endurance and flexibility). On top of the potential life-lengthening benefits such as reducing falling, balance training can help us build strength, improve our posture, and increase athleticism.
“The Dancer’s Pose helps you to improve physical and mental coordination and at the same time enhances concentration. This yoga pose is great for strengthening the lower body, abdominals and lower back. While it also strengthens the stabilizing muscles around the joints.” The pose can be seen in the image above. If this looks too complicated you can also build up to it by starting with simply stating on one leg and moving to a tree pose and building your skills up.
Active Lifestyle
For Falls Prevention Week the Active Lifestyles team arranged events at 2 of our locations, Auchenharive and the Portal.
The sessions included a Fall Fighter presentation and an Invigor8 class.
If you are interested in any of their other Falls prevention resources you can view them on our website. Falls Prevention – KA Leisure
View the other activities in the community ANA programme here: Community ANA Programme – KA Leisure
It is important to improve your balance and overall health and become more aware of how to prevent falling.
