Senior Fitness: Exercises to Prevent Falls

The risk of falls increases in older adults and is the result of a combination of factors. Daily exercise improves strength, muscle mass, and flexibility. These all play a part in balance and can help with fall prevention. Let’s look at the best exercises for balance and the steps you can take to prevent falls.

Causes of Falls

There are many reasons that the risk of falling increases in older adults. Regular exercise can help with fall prevention, but balance is affected by other factors. Walking itself requires balance, and as we age, we lose sensory components, such as the following:

• Hearing or auditory

• Smell or olfactory

• Taste or gustatory

• Touch or tactile

• Vestibular or movement

These components give us information about where our head and body are in space. In older adults, proprioception is decreased. This means the body’s ability to sense movement and action is limited. Understanding body position is disrupted. This leads to changes in balance and equilibrium in the body. Basic activities of daily living like walking, sitting, and standing are affected. As a result, falls occur more often. 

Older adults often live a more sedentary lifestyle, and falls are a consequence. Using corrective exercises for seniors can help improve daily living. Common issues among older adults are not just issues related to poor balance. But poor balance results from strength loss, joint pain, poor flexibility, and low cardiovascular output. 

A decline in physical fitness increases the likelihood of falling, along with many other factors. In older adults, impaired vision makes it difficult to see ground objects and surroundings. Some medications can also cause side effects like dizziness which increases fall risk. These environmental and behavioral changes are amplified by changes in depth perception as we get older.

Learn more: The Importance of Strenght Training for Seniors

Improving Balance and Increasing Mobility

We know balance comes from the brain. Babies didn’t strengthen their bodies to learn to stand, balance, and walk. Their brain felt and learned how to adjust body movements. Bodies are strengthened BY moving. Our systems don’t change with age, they just slow down by being less active and well worked. Yet as we age, we focus almost fully on the body itself.

The question is, how do we strengthen, speed up, and increase the proprioceptive messaging from brain to body and body to brain? This, in return, will recover or prevent loss of balance confidence and increased mobility. These two factors alone will have unbelievable effects on mental and physical health and reduce the fear of falling to loss of independence.

So how do we return the neurological ability to support body movement? Here is a basic list of requirements:

1. Remove fear of balance exercises so the brain flows freely.

2. Have a progressive exercise program that allows for freedom of movement.

3. Create an environment and setting that allows for “failure” of excellence to give the brain freedom to recover and try again.

4. Set benchmarks for progression that helps the client believe in themselves by their own success.

5. Have the client understand the small steps lead to big results.

They need to understand that balance training for living life is not about being stationary and static. That is an evaluator. Real balance training for movement is the ability to engage pressure point changes faster than we feel the changes and maintain a constant position of safe body alignment before it becomes a problem.

Exercises must include repetitive motions not just for foot and body training but even more for the brain to have time to build the neurological messaging both ways - what do I want to do and what is happening as I do it.

Create specific movement pressure point and stabilization activation to address strengthening needs in the foot, ankle, calf, knees, quads, hips, core, and spine alignment or lean. These exercises just need changes of pressure points to be movement-related. Pick your exercises with the thought of evaluation or exercise progression for real-life success.

60uP has partnered with ISSA to create an exclusive Mobility, Strength, and Balance for Life course that incorporates over 200 mobility balance exercises for real-life results. ISSA members get special pricing on their course and their device here.

Fall Prevention Exercises

There are many exercises one can do to help prevent falls. Stretching is also increasingly important with age. It’s important to consider daily activities when determining the best exercises. 

Movements such as squatting or sitting, standing, and bending down or hinging are common daily movements. During these movements, if muscles are not strong enough and balance is disrupted, falls occur. Consider adding the following exercises into your or your client’s daily routine.

Sit-to-Stands

Most of our daily activities in life include constant sitting and standing. This includes squatting up and down to pick up objects, getting in and out of vehicles, and going to the restroom. 

1. Sit in a chair with your feet hip or shoulder width apart. 

2. Make sure your heels are close to the legs of the chair. 

3. Stand up by pushing through your feet, mainly through the heel. 

4. Sit back down and repeat for repetitions or time.

If you need assistance, use a chair with an armrest for support. 

Calf Raises

Strengthening your calves will help improve balance while walking and changing directions. Being on your toes also forces the body to balance and stabilize.

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart with a chair directly in front of you.

2. Hold onto the back of the chair and lift your heels off the ground.

3. Push up on your toes and squeeze your calves.

4. Slowly lower your heels back to the ground and repeat.

To make it more challenging, avoid holding on to the back of the chair. 

Hip Flexion and Extension

Walking involves lifting your feet and placing them back down. Hip flexors help lift the leg and hip extensors help the feet push through the ground. It is common for older adults to drag their feet, which increases fall risk. This is why hip flexion and extension exercise is important. 

1. Hold onto a chair in front of your body.

2. Lift your right knee up towards your chest.

3. Bring it back down towards the ground and straight back behind the body.

4. Return your foot back down to the ground and repeat on the left leg.

Use the chair for support as needed. 

Single Leg Stance

Balancing on one leg and in one spot can help clients prevent falls if they lose balance while walking. Practice positioning the body and strengthening it in the single-leg stance to get the body used to being off balance a bit. 

1. Start in a standing position with feet hip-width apart.

2. Lift one foot off the ground and hold.

3. Once you find balance and can hold one foot, switch to the other.

Hold onto an object for balance and then progress to holding nothing. 

Heel-to-Toe Walk

Think of this as walking on a tightrope. Sometimes you might encounter situations where you may need to walk in a narrower hallway, and this can help improve balance and proprioception.

1. Hold onto something for balance.

2. Stand with your right foot in front of the left. The right heel should touch the toes of the left foot.

3. Alternate feet while walking with one in front of the other.

Use a wall to hold onto for support or try to balance in one position before trying to walk. 

Marches

Being able to march will make walking much easier. It strengthens the hip flexors and teaches you how to lift your feet up off the ground. 

1. Begin walking forward by lifting your right knee. 

2. Bring your right foot back to the ground and lift the left.

3. Keep moving in the forward direction marching for a set distance.

If you need to modify, hold onto a secure object and march in place.

Lateral Walks

Sometimes we need to walk sideways, move out of the way, or get around objects like furniture. Lateral walks build more strength in the abductor muscles and prevent many falls.

1. Stand with your feet together to start. 

2. Take one step to the right, followed by the left foot.

3. Perform steps in one direction and then in the opposite direction. 

The narrower the stance, the more challenging. 

Bonus Fall Prevention Exercise Ideas

Consider these additional ideas to help clients boost their health and in turn their strength, balance, and mobility:

• Tai Chi has been proven to improve balance in seniors. (1) The focus on slow movement improves muscle strength, especially in the core, which is so important for balance.

• Yoga is another proven method of improving longevity, balance, and mobility for seniors. (2)

• Meditation may not be the first thing that comes to mind for exercise, but can provide many benefits for senior clients. It improves both physical and mental health.

How to Prevent Falls at Home

Preventing falls comes down to two major components. Strengthening the body and maintaining balance through exercise. It also includes removing environmental hazards to minimize tripping and falling. Trying to set up your environment to be less hazardous for tripping and falling is just as important as keeping up with exercise.

• Choose proper footwear. Wearing the right footwear is important for balance and reduces the chance of injury. Avoid wearing open-toed shoes; instead, choose shoes with a secure ankle and backing. 

• Reduce clutter. Footwear is important but falls still occur from tripping on objects like throw rugs, toys, and other things lying around. Decreasing clutter and improving lighting can help decrease the chances of falling. 

• Install support railings. When going up stairs without support, the chances of falling are also high. Install railings on stairs, bathrooms, and showers. These can be used daily for balance and stability. 

Learn more: Functional Exercise Training for Seniors

Get Certified to Help Clients Prevent Falls

Falls cause a major risk to seniors and can cause a loss of autonomy for daily activities of living. However, exercises for balance and focusing on increasing strength can reduce the risk of falls.

Learn more strategies to create exercise programs for the needs of senior fitness clients. Check out the ISSA’s Senior Fitness Instructor course. 

References

1. Hu, Y.-N., Chung, Y.-J., Yu, H.-K., Chen, Y.-C., Tsai, C.-T., & Hu, G.-C. (2016). Effect of Tai Chi exercise on fall prevention in older adults: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. International Journal of Gerontology, 10(3), 131–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijge.2016.06.002

2. Youkhana, S., Dean, C. M., Wolff, M., Sherrington, C., & Tiedemann, A. (2015). Yoga-based exercise improves balance and mobility in people aged 60 and over: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing, 45(1), 21–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afv175