The Truth About Balance Training

Q: The American College of Sports Medicine sent out a press release predicting the biggest fitness trends of 2009. One of them is stability-ball training, because this can “teach balance.” Can balance really be trained in adults?

A: In adults, balance can be regained, but not taught. If you don’t already have balance skills by age 12, you’re not going to improve dramatically as an adult. It’s a waste of time.

Now, if you’ve lost those skills over the years, then balance training can help you get back to where you once were. This might help prevent falling injuries in the elderly.

Before the age of 12, balance training is really good. Kids need to play on unstable surfaces. Imagine a kid at a park jumping from rock to rock. Each rock has a different shape, so the child has to balance on it. Walking on narrow surfaces like a high beam in gymnastics can also really train balance.

One expert from Canada goes as far as to say that balance must be trained before the age of four. Some will even argue that you should start with toddlers, tapping them gently on each side as they’re walking so they have to catch themselves.

That’s extreme, but when it comes to developing balance, the younger you do it, the better. Skiers have some of the best balance and spatial-awareness skills you’ll see, and most [of the elite skiers] got on the slopes at age two.

As a side note, swimmers are the opposite. They can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. They spend so much time in the water that their proprioception is poor. Ever see a bunch of swimmers playing soccer to warm up? They look like penguins having epileptic fits!