Hi folks, I'm Bob Shrupp physical
therapist. Brad Heineck, physical therapist. Together we are the most famous physical
therapists on the internet. In our opinion, of course Bob. Top 10 balance exercises
for seniors at home that stop those falls Brad. Exactly, we've been doing
therapy 20 years for me and about 100 for you. 150, yup. Anyways we've worked with a
lot of broken hips. A lot of broken bones because of falls, and face it if you're
you know in your 70s or 80s and you break your hip the chances of you
getting a full recovery are not real good. So the big thing is don't fall. It can send you on a downward decline.
I don't
want to say that because sometimes, a lot of people can bounce back. That's true, but it's harder.It's harder.
The biggest thing is is avoid the fall. Yep, and there's no easy way to do this.
You've got to put it in the work. Right. To some extent. Exactly. So Bob, I did
notice, right behind Lonnie there were four hundred and seventy six people that
just walked in. Welcome. Please come to our channel if you are new to our
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turn it all around.
But I was liked a little bit Bob. Dogs don't count Brad, dogs
don't count. Yeah. All right, let's start with the first one. Well we're talking
about people who are walking typically without a cane or a walker yet but they
know they're a little unsteady.They're having a hard time maybe getting in and out of their chair, which
is a very common place where fall occurs, is getting out of a chair. So that's the
first. One we got this on two phases from strengthening exercises and then a
little more advanced ones, but it's all for that you know 50 and over-age, or if
you're recovering from an injury at any age. Sure these will work.
All right
so Bob. You start with a chair and everybody's got a chair. Right. Chair
with armrests. Yep, and then how you do this
is gonna be important because typically when you get out of chair if
you lean forward you push here and you get up it's much easier. Right. Okay, so
that's we might as well practice good good mechanics and then sitting down.
That habit of what's behind you, make sure you can feel at the back of your legs
and you can grab your armrest, sit down nice and slow and don't, don't plop down
even though you're safe, you're gonna hit the chair, that's a good way to get a
compression fracture. Yep, and then your back. Right on.
So you got your chair we know the mechanics and we're just gonna practice
getting up and then get make sure you have your balance for about a second or
two, reach back and sit down and just working those legs, and you'll be amazed
if you do ten of these, even though you know it's gonna get you tired.
You may
not be able to do ten right away, depending on your condition, but that's
kind of the goal, is to work up the ten sit the stands, and feel confident and
steady between each one. I don't think a lot of people realize Brad, that this
really is a source of a lot of your strength for your legs and what happens
is quite often we see people get those sit to stand chairs sure the ones that
lift you up and they get so weak that they can't even walk later. Right. And so
we're talking about the recliners with the push button that lifts you right up. And so we're not a big fan
of those unless you just can't get out of the chair without it.
Yeah. I mean we'd
rather have you work at it, so and then do you want to show progression or is
that not the next one? Well, yeah, we can do that, if this is getting too easy, yeah,
you just go to one hand and you when you do ten with one hand, and that's too
easy then you can go like this or like this. This is quite a bit harder. Yeah. But then
you know you're getting some good strength. You know, if you're
concerned at all, you might want to have a chair in front of you so that if you
need to grab something for balance but by this point you should feel confident
with that. Okay. And not need that. All right. We better move on Brad. Okay, now
this is a set of exercises, very common, most physical therapists will recommend
this to people. Right. And I thought we can do it from two angles Bob. Sure.
I'll do it
from from behind, so they can see what it looks like. You do it from the side, and the first thing
we're going to do is you're going to hold on to a solid chair maybe the
kitchen countertop or the sink is you can grab for
balance and simply do some marching. So we're gonna try and bring those knees up.
Make sure you don't bump your knee into the chair or the counter top because that might
hurt.
We do not want to have pain with this and you can do like ten on the side,
so you count to 20 if you're counting alternate one two, otherwise ten on each
leg. Okay, good posture, posture, posture. Now
the next one is going out to the side like this. Hip abduction, and this one I
don't know about you Bob, but I usually have people just do right side. Yep.
right in a row. Yep, ten in a row. Show them some things that they want to
watch out for, not to be leaning forward. You don't want, right, you don't want to
lean forward like this, but you also don't want to dip with it.
You also want to keep the toe pointed straight forward, like this. Right. You
don't want to go like this. Exactly, and this is an important one, because this
gets that waddle out of your walk. Yep this is a big one for balance, without a doubt. Yes, so we're
gonna go like this. Ten on this side and ten on the other side, and then the next
one, probably from that angle would be the best, is hip extension and again,
show them.
Don't be doing this. Yep. don't be the dip and duck here. No
dipping and ducking is right. Just straight back with the leg. See how Bob's
got a nice straight back here is working a lot of hip muscle in there and he's
keeping the leg straight. Do the bend the knee thing. Yeah, we don't really want
to do that. We want to keep. It's gonna be better strengthening this way.
Again ten repetitions on a leg and then the next one. Ready? Yeah, up on the toes,
and then back on the heels, now this one is really a nice ankle strengthening
exercise which is a real key part of balance and I find a lot of people that
are in their 50s or 60s and older have a hard time with this one because those
muscles seem to weaken up. Do you see that Bob? Absolutely especially this way. Yeah.
Now toes up.
My mom is doing all these by the way. Oh good. We just went over them,
last time I was there. She's 86. 86 and she's working. She's still walking but
she's kind of borderline, her balance, so that's why we're having her do these.
Okay so now we're gonna go to some more a little more advanced Brad? Yep, a little more
advanced. Why don't you slide that chair in, and you can do this at your counter
top what's it in front of you if you have two chairs like this besides I'm
gonna do it this way for video, and it's simply, can you balance on one leg, and
hold on with both hands then go to one hand and then see if you can do it like
this, but be ready to grab something, and if you can do that 10
or 15 seconds.
That's good if you're like 60 -70 years old. Brad and I talked about if you wanted like
a daily activity while you're brushing your teeth you can try to do this. That's
a little more advanced, you wanna hold onto the countertop, but if you can do
this and balance on one leg. Right. You're
doing pretty good because it takes a lot of. Sure. You're moving, so. What do they
call it double dose? Yeah double dosing. Right. double dosing. Another phrase for it.They
call it double dosing, why I don't know. Well it's a prescription of exercise.
Okay then, the next one is bring your feet like this close together have
something to hold on to and simply slide your foot forward and as it gets easy,
you know, it's gonna be harder, the further you go forward, from the side it
looks like this, slide forward here in here when you get in line and if you can
let go boy you're doing pretty darn good.
Yes, you are. Make sure you got something to
hold on to. I can do that. Then you can actually separate the foot a little bit
but we're not going to go into the splits, maybe just the length of one foot
as far as you want to go. You're putting the foot right in front of the other one.
In line. Right. See the red line here, we're gonna keep it in line. We're gonna
start out here, go forward in line. Okay? Once that gets too easy then this is
where you need to have a countertop. I think a longer counter top. A longer
counter top, yep. In this case Bob why don't you pretend
we got a. I can do it on here. Can slide this around real quick. Well that's. Okay
oh you want to see it that way.
Well, just because it's. A little higher.
Yep. So we've got something about this height. The counter top. Yeah, and I'm gonna
pretend this would be like a parallel bar, which we have some over there, but
we don't want to move the whole studio. Okay, and we're just gonna start, try and
go heel to toe, now I don't know where other countries but in the United States
I always get my patients say, Oh yeah, I'm doing the the DWI test to see if you're
inebriated or not if you're driving. It's the same test, but you're gonna
start out here. Make sure you got something to hold on to.You can do the
counter top and a cane on this side, is a really good way to do it, and you see if
you can touch your heel to your toe, heel to your toe.
Now if you don't feel steady
with this, do not do it. Just do the, do the first five that we did, but you know
if you're at the point where this is, you know a challenge, but safe, go
ahead and let's do that about ten feet, and then try and go backwards. And the heel
should touch the toe. That's put a little proprioception ,we call that and
that's gonna help with your balance as well, so you know where your feet are
without looking, that's a real important component of balance. All right Bob.
Walking the line, and you know if you're a Johnny Cash fan, you know some of these
people may know of him. Sure. I walk the line. You can sing that song when you're
doing this. Because you're mine, I walk the line.
Oh Bob.
All right. The Tennessee Three isn't it? That I don't know. That was his, name
of his band. All right someone will chime in on a concert. Now the next one, two
solid chairs here, and you know with balance we talked about in line but a
lot of times you're twisting and moving and that's where people do a fall they
say I just turned and.
They get distracted. Right. Yep. They're looking
around. Right. That's why holiday events are often bad.
You bet, so you can practice that, a little bit, by yourself. Bring your feet
about shoulder width apart and simply turn over and touch this chair here, okay,
and as you do that make sure you're holding the chair, and then turn and look,
because your vision has a lot to do with your balance and if you look away and
your holding then you're safe. But you're still practicing now, if this gets real
easy, and you can turn like this well then you go to the little more advanced, one
leg. One leg. And then turn make sure you got a good hold here, and you know
if you're really confident, you're doing well ,especially if someone's there to
help you, in case you lose your balance, then you can kind of let go, and do your
turning.
Gotcha Do both legs.Okay. Wow, Bob. That's really
gonna help you, and again, in everyday life, when you're walking along and like
I said, someone distracts you. I think, instead of saying double doseing,
we wanted to go multi tasking. Multi tasking. That's what happens when the
brain needs a little exercise. So, did we get everything we gotta cover Brad? I
think so Bob, we did a nice job but remember, make sure you start at the
beginning you may not even get to the advanced one.
That's perfectly fine. The the first five are perfect for most people as a daily
routine. Right, so okay thanks for watching. you.