Top 3 Balance Exercises for Seniors

Improve your balance dramatically with these three moves:


Box Step Ups

Helps with: Walking up stairs
Equipment required: A stable, elevated platform. If you don’t have one readily available (a wooden box will do), learn how to make one here.
The basics: This is a very straightforward exercise. Start by facing the box, and step up onto it with your left leg, followed by your right, so that you are now standing on top of the box. Now step your left leg back down, followed by your right. Repeat this movement 10 times, and then switch so that you’re starting with your right foot. If you’d like more of a challenge, load a backpack with heavy things like bags of flower and waterbottles. Slowly add more weight to the backpack and add more repetitions.

Before you know it, you’ll be a super senior stair master with impeccable balance.

Split Squats

Helps with: Stabilizing your knee joints
Equipment required: None
The basics: Stand with your legs shoulder-width apart. Now, step your right leg back about 3 feet, keeping your balance in the middle of both legs (where your torso is). Next, slowly lower your right knee to the floor, ensuring that your left knee points out directly in front of you, forming a 90 degree angle, and your right knee hovers just over the floor (or touches). Come up slowly. Repeat 10 times, and switch legs. If you’d like more of a challenge, fill up two 1 litre water bottles and hold them in each hand while performing the exercise.

If your forward knee wobbles, do not lower yourself all the way to the ground, but rather, part way, and work up to lowering it all the way.

One-Legged Balance

Helps with: Overall balance
Equipment required: A chair
The basics: Holding onto a chair back, pick up your right leg and balance on your left. If this is easy, try using only one hand to hold on to the chair back. If this is easy, release a few fingers. If it’s still easy, try using no hands. See how long you can hold it for. Repeat on your right leg. If you can, kick the free leg back and grab your heel with your hand, giving yourself a quadricep stretch (that’s the big muscle at the front and outer side of your thigh).

When you’ve mastered this, you can try lifting your leg to the side, and to the back as well, to build up great overall balance.

So go ahead and give these balance exercises for seniors a try – we promise that if you do them consistently at least four times a week, for about three weeks, you’ll start to see immense improvements!

Source: superseniorfitness