Strength And Balance: Latest Evidence

16/05/2025

If you're asked to do a "balance exercise" that's so hard that you need to use your hands to maintain position...
..well then you're not improving your balance, you're improving your ability to use your hands to maintain position!

👉 You should be doing an easier variation of the movement that still allows you to move your feet to recover from a loss of balance 

31/03/2025

Balance is task-specific... and context-specific!

To improve balance" we need to 👉 practice scaled versions of each movement skill that needs to be improved and then progressively increase the challenge until the client reaches their movement goal

👉 Progressively increasing the challenge includes changing context 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15ueD6mVoF/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Fear of falling changes how we balance — and the vestibular system shows it.
New research by Zaback et al. (J Physiol, 2025) confirms that vestibular-evoked balance responses are amplified by threat, but fade with repeated exposure — mirroring emotional and autonomic adaptation.

This matters clinically. Vestibular responses aren’t fixed. They’re shaped by experience, emotion and environment.
Vesticam IR video goggles help capture subtle eye movements in real time, allowing clinicians to observe these changes — and support evidence-informed decision-making over time.
Thanks to the authors – Martin Zaback, Solenne Villemer, Kyle Missen, J Timothy Inglis and Mark G Carpenter – for a timely and valuable contribution to vestibular research.

Full paper: https://doi.org/10.1113/JP287391

Learn more: www.vesticam.com

05/03/2025

Partial squats at the kitchen counter don't help with getting out of a low chair

👉To develop strength at depth, you need to train at gradually increasing depth

17/04/2022

Ouch.

11/04/2022

Can’t wait to check this one out!

https://www.facebook.com/100057348832723/posts/462251885696435/?d=n

Check this out 👇👇👇The WHO endorsed ‘Preventing falls among older people’ webinar

07/04/2022

Exactly the same applies to balance training:

06/04/2022

Standing hip extension is not correlated with improvements in balance… and its not even a great exercise to target what we think it targets.

So why is it a “strength” exercise in so many pre-printed program sheets for balance clients? 🤔

20/03/2022

Principle 1️⃣0️⃣ Balance exercises need to be F**T

Balance skills are not developed unless they’re practiced with the appropriate frequency, intensity, type, and time. The specifics of these parameters need to be individualised based on each client’s existing capacity.

19/03/2022

The goal of balance rehab is motor learning… the principles of skill acquisition apply

08/03/2022

When done right, you don’t even need to touch clients 🤔

20/02/2022

Teaching someone to get down and up off the floor isn’t just about post fall recovery… it’s about independence and quality of life

19/02/2022

Great post by the Institute of Clinical Excellence😎 It takes into consideration use of the F**T principle, particularly intensity, time, and type

Type of exercise is the big takeaway here… the principle of specificity reigns supreme 🥇

🛑 HINT: Squeezing putty will have little functional carryover to tasks like carrying a bag