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 Channel please take a second to
subscribe to us we provide videos how stay healthy fit pain-free and we upload
every day. There's the subscribe button right there too. Oh yeah, we kind of
forgot about that. Yeah. And also please, if you have a second to go over to Facebook
and like us there because Brad and I as children
we're not liked and now we're trying to 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