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Keeping your balance
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This is an interesting topic for me. Balance can mean so many things in a person’s life. More often than not we find ourselves talking about balance in our life in regards to work or time or diet. Today I want to discuss balance in regard to not falling down.
When we are children learning how to walk and run and play, we are constantly seeking out ways to improve our balance. You are probably thinking back to your own childhood and thinking, "I don't remember trying to improve my balance." In fact most all of us were at some point balancing ourselves on a curb, or along a divider in a parking lot, or some other imaginary line. This is our body subconsciously improving the balance in our muscles.
I'm going to throw a couple of three dollar words out there, but they are very important and I want you to know them and remember them. The first is neuromuscular junction. This is the point where the nerve and the muscle meet. By improving the neuromuscular junction you increase your proprioception. Proprioception is the body’s ability to determine where it is in space. So now that you know what those two big words mean, the easiest way to explain it is, when the communication between your nerves and your muscles increases, you can tell if your arm is raised without having to look at it. 
That seems silly I know, but have you ever stood up straight with your feet together and your eyes closed. I find whenever I am at church sometimes when we have our eyes closed, I will look around at the congregation and see the people with their eyes closed, and most of them are struggling to stay straight up. Usually the people are swaying from side to side, or sometimes back and forth a bit. They are not doing this intentionally; they are doing it because the muscles in the legs and specifically their ankles are not able to properly tell the nerves where they are. Again, I know this all sounds silly, but give it a try. Stand up right now, put your feet together and close your eyes. I almost guarantee you will find your swaying at least a little bit.
When you find yourself swaying, this means that you are lacking proprioception in your legs. By building up this proprioception in your legs it also benefits the muscles in your abdominals, more commonly referred to as your core. Building up the core of your body helps decrease pain in your back.
That last sentence can tell you how important I feel that balance is. If everybody spent 15 minutes a day working on building up your balance, most people would find that they have less back pain. I know this may sound bad for business, but believe it or not, healthy patients are what I like to see. That means that I am doing my job. Next time I will talk about balance in a different light.
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