Balance activity (Part 1)

Physical therapy

﻿Hello and welcome to today's lesson. My name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for taking the time to join me for our lesson today. So we are in unit five and this is lesson seven. And what we're going to be doing today is looking at a balance activity. So we'll start with a recap on what is balance and we'll look at also why it is important. So we're going to do an activity called a Warrior II which you may have heard of. So we're going to be strong Warriors today and there will be some options to either extend the activity a little bit more or there'll be some options to make it a bit easier so simplify it so don't worry there should be something for you. So if you want to get yourself ready you don't need any equipment you may just need some help from a parent or carer. So if you get yourself ready and then we can get going with today's lesson. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. So let's start today's lesson by looking at what is balanced. So a little recap. So balance is being able to remain upright and steady. And how does this happen and how does it help? So we receive information from our eyes, our joints, muscles, and skin. So receptors in these areas about where our body is in space and from our inner ear as how our head is moving. So all these things contribute to giving us feedback and help contribute to our balance system. So our body uses this information to change its muscle activity and muscle tone. So that's the readiness for the muscles to work which is known as equilibrium reactions. So these are our balance reactions. And how we respond to changing situations and the environment without balance. And also it can help change our posture move our body parts to keep us in the middle which is known as a righting reactions. So if we get knocked to one side or we lose our balance a little bit our reactions bring us back to the middle to keep us steady again and it can also help to focus with our eyes more. And let's recap why is balance so important? So our balance provides the body with stability. We need to maintain postures and also to move. It help keeps us steady when we want to move a body part such as our head, arm or a leg. So in things like walking balance is really important. And it keeps us in a position that is better for us to do lots of activities such as eating and drinking being able to see, being able to listen and also which is really important is being able to communicate properly and for learning. And balance can help us because it prevents us from falling over and from injuring ourselves which is a really good thing. So now I've got a little activity for us to try and it is called a Warrior II pose. So you may have heard of this before or you may have heard someone talk about it from a yoga class. It's just a nice activity to get you really thinking about your balance when you are in a standing posture. So your position I'll talk through it first and then I'll demonstrate in a video and it will be clearer when I demonstrate it I think because it can sound a bit complicated when you're not watching someone do it. So you're going to start in a step standing position. So keep your front foot facing forwards and turn your back foot to be facing sideways. And then you want to turn your upper body in the direction of your front foot and keep your feet and hips in the same position. So your body should almost be in a long line. Imagine a good way to imagine actually is between two walls. So you're on a quite narrow basis support. And you want to put your arms outstretched to about shoulder height and your palms down and fingers stretched out. So your hands and your arms in this position are really active as well. So you're not only looking at balance. We are looking at core muscle strengthening which is really good too. So you're going to bend your step front leg slightly. You're going to look forwards over your outstretched arm. So I like to look just down my middle finger which can be good for your balance as well. And I want you to initially try and hold this for 20 seconds. Please make sure you're breathing in this position. So remember about your breath. So take a deep breath in and you remember back to the stretching unit that we looked at. You want to use your breath to help you settle into that position but also it can help with your balance as well. So do it on one side first so you have to stay facing to your left and then swap to the other side and try it on both sides. So if you pause the video now have a go at that activity and then rejoin me afterwards. Oh I'll now demonstrate to you the Warrior pose. And what I'll do is I'll show you the pose that I'd like you to try first and then I'll give you some options to extend it and also some options to simplify. So if you watch me first and then we can do those other things afterwards. So the starting position you're going to have in a step standing position. And then what you're going to do is you're going to turn your front foot so it's facing forward and your back foot so it's facing in like this. So you're almost at that angle. And then what you want to be doing is you are going to bend into your front leg and keep your back leg straight. And then you're going to arch bring this up a little bit so you can see what I'm doing with my arms. So front leg is bending but like it's straight but your body you want to be keeping everything in a line this way. And then you're going to bring your arm into this position with your palms facing down. And you're going to look forward over your front arm the one that I'm waving here look forward that way. And you can extend it by turning it into a reverse Warrior. So you can bring tip your hand going down this way and you're going to bring your other arm all the way up and you're reversing at Warrior. So I just made the camera angle so you can see me do that. So you're going to be in that position there then you're going to reverse your Warrior and then you can use your gaze to look up to your other hand. So that could be quite a nice stretch as well. So when you come into these if you just stay there for short amounts of time and you're feeling nice stretch but also it's challenging your balance and it's using the best strength because you've got to stay in this position. If you'd like an easier pause then the starting position. So that was Warrior II. The other one is called Warrior I. So you're going to come into same foot position but instead of bringing your arms out like this you're just going to come all the way up like that. And I'll make the camera so that you can see what I'm doing with my feet as well. So you're going to be in this position and then you'll reach in your palms up. Now your hands are together. Okay so if you pause the video now you can have a go at those options and then rejoin me afterwards. So how did you find it? Did you find it a challenge or was it quite easy? So let's talk through the ways to extend and simplify as they're written here. So as always to increase the challenge and to make it a bit harder just hold the pause for a little bit longer and you could bend the front knee further so you could almost take your bend in the pose a little bit deeper. Then you could go from a bent knee position and bring it back up to standing. So you can bend and straighten your knee and repeat this three times but try and keep that posture when you're doing it. Then you can extend into other Warrior positions. And to simplify you can also make it easier by reducing the amount of time you hold it for so just do it for a short amount of time and come back out. You can just keep the front knee straight. So you're almost in like a triangle pause and you could just keep your arms by your side if you don't want to put them up in front of you. And if you need to hold on to something you can if you would like to try that. And also as I demonstrated in the video you can start with a Warrior I pause. So this is where you put your arms just above your head rather than going out to the sides. Okay so pause the video again now you can have a go at these options and then rejoin me afterwards and we'll end the lesson. How did you find the Warrior II pause? Did you give some of the options to try as well? It can really help with your balance and I think it can just really work on your core as well. So that's a nice activity to do and also I think it can really help ground you and you can really work on your breathing in that position as well. So thank you for joining me today. Please join me next time where we will be continuing with our balance activities and we will look at a new activity and we will do some movement with it. So it's going to be walking activity with a bean bag or similar on your head. So all that leads me to say now is take care have a great rest of your day and I will see you soon goodbye.

Balance activity (Part 1)

Balance activity (Part 1)

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