Using Exercise to Prevent Falls

If you were in the process of losing your balance, what would you need to do to prevent a fall? Well, you would likely need to reach out for something to hold onto to steady yourself or you would need to step so that you could change your position. To reach or step successfully, your body would need to coordinate all its systems in less than a millisecond to send a message to your brain and then back to your muscles to react. 

The ability to detect a fall that is getting ready to happen depends on cognitive processing. This is a process that allows you to gather and use information related to your environment and integrate it with all of your systems receiving input from the outside world. Ultimately, it is up to your brain and spinal cord to synthesize this information into a quick response so that recovering your balance happens and a fall does not. With age, all the steps in this process slow down which translates to a slower reaction time and slower recovery when something throws you off balance.

So how can you make sure that age-related change in your body systems over time does not lead to falls? Well, exercise of course!  Studies show that there are 4 main characteristics of exercising your muscles that lead to reducing fall risk:

Strength

Strength training refers to the ability to generate force and involves lifting a weight for a short number of repetitions.  This can be done with dumbbells, weight machines or your own body weight. Muscle contractions during this type of exercise are slow and controlled. Examples of activities that require strength include putting a gallon of milk in the refrigerator or getting up from a low chair.

Coordination

Another term for coordination is motor control. This refers to the precision of a movement’s trajectory or path and requires you to efficiently switch your attention between different parts of a task. This kind of work requires parts of muscles to activate to support movements done by other muscles.  Examples of activities that require coordination include carrying a bulky object while walking or opening a package.

Endurance

Endurance training refers to the ability to sustain muscles’ contractions over time. This kind of work can be done with equipment like bikes, ellipticals and treadmills and requires muscles to contract and relax over an extended period of time. Examples of activities that require endurance include standing to take a shower or prepare a meal and walking. 

Power

Power training refers to the ability to use speed to move quickly and react. Like strength training, power training can be done with dumbbells, weight machines or body weight. However, power training requires a speed of movement that is much more than the speed you can move when you are lifting something heavy. That’s why this kind of training uses a low amount of resistance and large amount of repetitions. Examples of activities that require power include changing directions quickly while walking or quickly stepping up curb. 

It can seem overwhelming to ensure that you are including the right combination of strength, coordination, endurance and power activities into your exercise regimen to decrease falls but understanding the importance of each of these components can help focus your efforts. Muscle strengthening helps you stabilize your body weight when you move, helping to prevent sudden loss of balance. Developing coordination helps you manage doing more than one physical movement at a time. Building endurance helps you ensure that your muscles are capable of performing daily activities over the course of your day, and power exercises help you improve your ability to react quickly and effectively over uneven or unexpected territory. 

It’s important to remember that any movement that you do over and above your regular day-to-day activities can likely be counted as exercise. But if you are feeling stuck about how to get started with a regimen that can specifically decrease your fall risk, reach out to a physical therapist. A physical therapist can sit down with you to help you devise a well-organized exercise program that is meaningful and manageable and that can set you up for success on your fall prevention journey.

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