Finally-Part 4 of a well "balanced" workout plan!

How many of you liked to roller skate, skateboard and ride bicycles (even unicycles!) as a kid?  How about walk along the curb, the top of a retaining wall, or maybe stand on tree branches high above the ground?  How about now?  Do you ever find yourself walking along the sidewalk, and actually walk right on the curb?  Did you roller blade with your kids, or sit or stand nearby, safely but boringly on both feet?

One of the major causes of injuries as we age are simple falls caused by losing our balance.  While sometimes these are unavoidable, researchers found that these falls occur more often because people stop "working" on their balance as they "grow up".  But did any of us work on our balance as kids, or did we just do activities that made us better at balancing our body?  My church had a long retaining wall that ran alongside a large playing field-at the time it was probably a couple of hundred feet long.  While part of it was really high (maybe 10-12 feet) at the street end it was only about two feet high.  Progressing down the wall from first holding your parent's hand, to walking most of it, to standing atop the tallest part was a rite of passage for many of the youth of the church.  While the Elders never joined us up on the wall, some of them probably had walked it in their day, and had grandsons (and some granddaughters) "working" on their balance up on it.

While that wall is long gone, the point is we need to incorporate activities that make us balance our bodies, working both the muscles that help us keep our balance, but also the automatic nervous system feedback loops.  To be honest, this can be as easy as shifting our weight while standing, just to get a feel for feeling our position in space again.  Progressing to standing on one foot is low impact, and then the sky is the limit.  I have friends in their 40s that still walk on their hands and do one handed hand stands!  You don't have to go that far, but I mention it to say what is possible.

Thanks for your patience for me to get this fourth installmant posted.