Hi, I'm Margaret at MelioGuide and today I'm going to talk specifically about all the different
variations you can do within your balance poses just by tweaking your foot positions.
So we're going to start from the very basic foundational balance pose of two feet, hip-width
apart.
Feet are parallel to one another, meaning that if you're following a straight line,
your toes, your heels are equidistance apart.
And so that's a really good foundational pose.
It's a good foundational pose for any of your exercises, whether it's a bicep curl or an
overhead press or getting up and down from a chair.
So it's function.
Now as we want to progress balance, we want to challenge our base of support.
So we start with keeping our feet parallel to one another and gradually bringing them
closer together so I could bring toes and heels and so I could the next day practice
with everything just a centimeter closer and then I continue, toes and heels.
When making the micro-changes I demonstrate both feet moving.
However, you might decide that you feel a lot more stable just starting with one foot
at a time.
So you might just shift the right foot, toe heel, try your balance pose again.
And if you feel you need another challenge, then shift the left foot coming in a bit closer.
So I do encourage you to always have it straight, not pigeon toed or out, plate footed.
But gradually, again day by day or week by week, depending on how frequently you work
on your balance, depending on other factors in your lower body strength and flexibility
until you can bring your feet, bring your feet as absolutely close together as your
anatomy allows.
Cap size, hip shape, toes, all of that.
So working your balance with a very narrow base, still with feet parallel to one another.
From this parallel position, then you want to start working towards a staggered stance.
So I'm going to bring my feet back to a comfortable distance apart.
A staggered stance simply means I'm taking a step.
So now my feet are in a staggered position.
From this staggered position, this is my gate.
This is where I take my next step.
So I want to make sure that I'm comfortable and stable here.
This is all the drills that we do with forward and back from here.
Now as this gets comfortable, once again you want to start narrowing your base of support.
So I might bring the front heel then toe in, heel then toe in and until gradually they're
getting closer and closer.
And I might not feel comfortable yet being on a line.
So I might then start to slide that front foot back ever so slightly and back some more.
And I find with most of my clients that I can get them to the position where their heel
is just about in line on the same plane as their big toe before they want to come or
feel comfortable coming in onto the line where heel and toe are in a straight line.
The straight line position with heel touching, just grazing, the toe of the back foot is
referred to as the tandem position.
And so that tandem position is quite challenging and often used in balanced testing.
And so this is a really good objective to reach before you start progressing to standing
on one foot.
Now this is all on a fairly stable surface.
We haven't talked about changing the surfaces yet, so when you are still just working with
a basic surface, whether it's your kitchen floor, your bathroom tiles, hardwood, those
are your firm surfaces.
When you get to a softer surface that changes everything a little bit more.
Now, single leg before going just on one foot, you want to start with toe touch.
If you find that toe touch is uncomfortable in terms of your big toe, a lot of people
have arthritis of the big toe.
They might find it more comfortable having the foot on a half foam.
And what that allows you to do, I'm just going to place this behind me, is it allows your
big toe to be off the edge.
So you're still toe touch or foot touch, but without a lot of bending at the big toe.
So I, people say, "Oh, I can't do that one," because I always find a way to make them do
their progression.
All the while you're always looking to keep the pelvis nice and level.
Now from here you start to progress to single leg, single leg in different positions.
And at this point, when you've progressed through the single leg routine, that's a nice
time to start changing the surface that you're standing on and going all the way back through
everything where, so here as an example, I have a yoga mat.
You might only start with two folds of the yoga mat.
I have about eight folds of this yoga mat.
You might go through the entire sequence standing on the mat just as we started with parallel
stance.
When you go into the staggered stance, you might start with just one foot, either the
front foot or the back foot on an unstable surface because that just amazingly kind of
changes and makes the exercise all exciting again.
And so you can go through the whole sequence of what we worked on, where you were feeling
really confident.
And now with either your front foot or your back foot on an unstable surface, it just
brings back life into your whole routine.
And then by all means you're going to have both feet on that soft surface.
And so if I take it into this position here where both are on one layer, two layers, four
layers, eight layers of yoga mat, and then again you're progressing all the way through.
Now these are really quite inexpensive.
Most people have a yoga mat at home or you can get one on sale somewhere.
And then half foams are also a really nice tool to have and allow you to progress through
your balance poses.
So you'll see these used in the athletic level of the exercise for better bones where at
this point, and sometimes at home, actually I have a half foam, but I've cut in two so
that I can still have a staggered stance position or parallel stance and use them in that way.
Otherwise, if you just have your full foam, then you're limited to your tandem stance
position, which might be more advanced than you're ready for.
Now you can use your foam with the round side up, which is actually, I find it a little
bit more challenging than having it the opposite way.
And all depending on your foam and you can do it where you're doing your... because your
foot is now flatter, your tandem stance.
And this is a fairly new foam so it's hasn't been flattened out at all by me or any of
my clients.
And so it's a really nice challenge with that rocking from side to side or you can actually
stand all the way the opposite way with it and getting that forward and back challenge,
which you would get in a more expensive rocker board.
But it allows you to work through it on something that's inexpensive and that you can use for
a number of other things like really nice calf stretches, those kind of things that
we cover in some of the ankle mobilization series.
So I think that kind of covers it.
I've probably missed some things, but you can take the concept and go with it.
And I hope you have a lot of fun and feel the strength and stability that improving
your balance provides.
Thanks for tuning in.