Balance Exercises

Often we walk into a situation and see children "playing" and think, "Wow, they are having fun!" What we fail to realize is that a great deal of that fun play is actually exercise. Exercise that we as adults should focus on as well.

This week and next, our younger students are focusing on multiple areas of play while in the gym. One of the featured areas is balance. The children have no idea that I actually designed this as a workout, all they know is they had fun balancing on different equipment.

Why should we add balance exercises to our regular workouts? Injury prevention! As I get older I begin to have a better understanding of why my mom complained of aches and pains, some days I honestly feel like I am slowly falling apart! Adding the focus of balance training to your workout will strengthen the ankle, knee and hip joints as well as strengthen your core muscles. Good balance is the key to functional movement (that is the fancy term for how we move throughout the day). Without a strong core and sense of balance, we fail to regain our center when we twist or turn and this results in possible falls. So back to my beginning statement...we need balance exercises to help prevent injury!

I hope you all have a great weekend. I'm going to head out and balance on a couple of ski's while burning calories to keep warm!