Physical activity for older Australians

The next group of exercises will be for balance. So the first one we're going to do is we're going to stand in stack stance.

So that means it's one foot forward of the other but it's not directly in front it's just at the side.

This is particularly good for anybody who has hip or knee problems and it's just the precursor to a tandem stance so once people feel comfortable doing that we'd then get them to look up and down with their moving their head up and down and then side to side.

Notice what's happening there in the ankle as you're doing these exercises and then of course we could move one arm forward and one arm back and then we would do it on the other side as well.

And the next exercise we'll do will be the tandem stance. So tandem is one foot directly in front of the other and this obviously decreases your base of support.

So this is quite a difficult exercise for some people.

So again we could do all of the turning of the heads going up and down and side to side. We can also introduce a ball.

Throw that to her Steve, and then your other. You we've tried that the other way as well. You always make sure that one goes for it we're usually better on one side than we are on the other.

So one side is our better side.

Okay challenge. You're a little bit out to the side. Last one.

Okay we might do that tandem walking. So walking along a line we can just put a bit of tape on the floor and then we're going to put one foot in front of the other and walk along the line.

And to progress that we could go backwards on there, we could throw a ball up in the air, we could do one arm bicep curls all with the tandem stance.

Okay the next one we're going to do is we're going to stand on one leg, turn your head looking up and down standing on one leg.

I mean if we can tuck that leg in behind gives you a greater sense of centre of support. Like you know if you can close your eyes we do that on both sides that's quite a difficult exercise to do.

We might like to start off with that with just having our fingertips on to the back of a chair to make that a little bit easier.

The next exercise we're going to try Steve is on a BOSU, and he's going to throw that ball sideways towards the wall.

Quite a big demand on your balance when you're doing this. We'll try that from the other side, often we're better on one side than on the other.

I'd like you to turn around and face the wall Steve and throw that ball.

Sometimes when you're on the BOSU to actually have something else to concentrate on makes the exercise easier.

Okay so we start to bring in some vestibular work here. We're going to be standing in tandem or stack stance and we're going to actually throw the ball above our head and follow it with our eyes we're bringing in that middle ear and eye into action because we're often better on the one side than we are on the other.

If you have a hearing problem and wear hearing aids you usually have some form of balance problem.

One of the exercises that you should do is this type of exercise.

So we've got the fingers out wide. Karen's going to keep her head still and move her eyes from one side to the other. You can stop in the middle and then gradually get faster and faster without the head moving at all, this is just the eyes.

That then changes to one finger being in the middle. This time you'll focus on that finger with your eyes and move your head side to side.

And the final one in that series is going to be that Steve will move his fingers in different directions and you will follow that.

You might find that if somebody has bifocals that that can be a bit of an issue sometimes and they may get dizzy. If you ever get dizzy doing that then you should stop.

So the next exercise we're going to do is to lift up and we're going to take those hands out to the side, and then we're going to do little circles with the hands

Quite a challenging exercise go back the other way with the hands and then come down.

And you would do about three or four of those exercises while you're in that position.

We'll do a Superman as well, leaning forward from the hips taking the arms out to the front and the leg back. Make sure that pelvic floor is switched on.

And then with the other side then from the hips comes out to the front, left leg behind, and relax.

And that’s the last one of our balance exercises.