Balance -- How Are Your Slackline Skills?

For the next year I'll be focusing my blog on the subject of balance.  Balance, that is, of all kinds: 

•            Physical balance
•            Emotional balance
•            Intellectual balance
•            Spiritual balance
•            Environmental balance
•            Situational balance
•            Energy balance
•            Nutritional balance
•            Aesthetic balance
•            Work/Life balance

I invite you to check in often to consider the current balance topic.  This week (and next) I'm talking about physical balance.

So, what’s slacklining?  Well, according to Slackline.com, slacklining “is the sport of walking a small, flat nylon rope between two points”  (a tightrope walker of sorts).

Over the past two weeks I gained some up-close respect for slacklining as I watched (in awe) the balance feats of our Patagonian guides practicing their slacklining skills at campsites along our trek of the Paine Circuit in Southern Chile.

Slacklining has been making its way into fitness programs with increasing frequency in recent years for good reason.  Slack-line walking is good for balance development.  And physical balance is good for fitness and wellness. 

Balance improves coordination, athletic skill and posture – and those improvements translate into fewer falls, greater speed and accuracy, and more energy in movement.

Let's take a look:

1.  Falls.  According to the U.S Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “Each year, one in every three adults ages 65 or older falls and 2 million are treated in emergency departments for fall-related injuries.”  A fall rate of one in three is frighteningly high.  But even if you are younger than 65, it’s significant to know that each year about 4 in 1,000 individuals from the overall population experiences a nonfatal fall (to include contusions, fractures, concussions and traumatic brain injury), for which a health-care professional is contacted.  Dr. Tiffany Shubert of UNC’s Institute on Aging has spearheaded some of the most comprehensive studies ever completed regarding balance training and falls.  A practicing physical therapist and educator of medical students, Dr. Shubert repeatedly has found that participation in balance programs reduces falls by having a positive impact on cognition and physical outcomes. 

2.  Speed and accuracy in movement.  Think of the “as the crow flies” concept of covering a known distance when you think of how balance enables active people, exercisers and athletes to improve speed and accuracy.  Truly, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line – and balanced propulsion supports linear movement.  From stumbles and falls to simply veering off course, poor balance introduces many deviations that ultimately hinder speed.  If you want to be a faster runner, walker, swimmer or cycler, true your course with balance.

3.  Posture and energy.  Have you ever noticed how, when working to “keep your balance,” you tense your muscles?  That tensing takes a lot of energy – energy that otherwise could go toward your ability to go further, exercise longer and experience faster recovery (you’ll experience less muscle soreness when you have better balance).  The true essence of balance is relaxation – and that relaxation comes through learning and practice.  Come with me once again to the slack line in Patagonia . . .

Our guides used the slack line for fun.  It was a game of sorts in which these fit young men displayed great finesse and competed to “out trick” one another (through a breathtaking series of jumps and turns and poses on the line).  When one of our fellow trekkers decided to try the slack line, his tension of the novice first became apparent in his furled brow, then worked its way down to his hunched shoulders and finally was most evident in his shaking knees.  To be honest, this was most likely the same posture that our slack-line proficient Chilean guides had assumed in their earliest attempts on the line – before learning and practice delivered the relaxation that became the foundation for their increasingly challenging acts of balance!

So maybe your goal isn’t to master the slack line.  Still, if you want to be safer, turn in a new “personal best” for your spring 10K, or just feel better after that next workout – balance can help.

Next week, I’ll talk about some simple things you can do to improve your physical balance. 

'Til then, remember -- Balance, it does a body good.