Dynamic balance

Physical therapy

﻿Hello there. I hope you're well, welcome to today's lesson. So we are on unit by lesson six and today we are going to look at dynamic balance. So, what we'll do first is we'll have a little look at what it is, and then we'll look at it, look at an activity. And today we're going to be tightrope walkers. So, I hope you're ready for that. So you just, need something that you, can pretend to be a tight rope. So I'm going to be using, a phone charger lead, which is quite long, and it needs to be relatively flat so that you're not wobbling on it. So you could be creative and perhaps use, a hose pipe or some string, or if you've got some chalk and you're outside, you could draw it on the ground outside. So you can get creative and see what you want to use for your rope. And, then if you need some help from a parent or Carrie you'd might like to ask them now. So if you want to get yourself ready and then we can get going with our lesson today, 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 look first at why balance is important, and then we'll have a place to look at why dynamic balance is important. So your dynamic balance is your balance when you're moving around. So you're changing position and you're using lots more movement to get around. So, balance provides the body, with stability we need to maintain postures and also move. It helped keeps us steady. So, your posture really steady and maybe your core stable when we want to move the body part such as our head, or like say when we want to sit, still, but we want to turn and look at something, or we want to reach for something, but we want to keep our body still. And, maybe when we want to move a limb, so a leg or something like that. So if we want to kick a ball, but we're standing still and it helps keep us in a position that's better for us. If you think about daily activities, such as eating, so you're sitting down, but you're using this part of your body to eat. And then you're using muscles around here as well, but you don't need to move the rest of your body while you're doing that. So you need to be able to keep your balance so that you can carry out that activity. And, for looking at things, and for listening as well. So these things all help with our communication and with our learning. And balance, prevents us from falling. So it helps keep us still. So we've got our two feet firmly on the ground. So now let's think a bit more about why is dynamic balance important? So why is our balance needed when we're moving? So it provides our whole body with stability. So that we can maintain our posture while we move. So that we're, keeping those nice alignments in our spine. We're, maintaining those postures, but we're moving at the same time. So it helps keep us steady when we're moving our whole body. And we want to move body parts such as turning our head. So when we're maybe walking and we need to turn and look at something and when we're maybe waving, but we need to keep still. So we don't need to move our whole body to wave. We just need to, wave with our arm and our rest of our body can stay still, or we might be moving and walking and waving. So that's a bit more of a complicated activity, but these things all happen really automatically. And it helps keep us in a position better for us to breathe, See, listen, communicate and carry out all the tasks that we need to do. And as I said before, it stops us from falling. So it keeps us on the ground. Okey, I think now we're going to have a gut this activity. So you're going to be a tight rope walker. So you might've done this before. You might've played it on the playground or you might've played at home. So it's, the activity. It gets me to heel toe walk. So this is where you're putting one foot in front of the other like that. So your base of support is narrow because you haven't got your feet next to each other. Like, going one in front of the other. So, as I said, at the beginning, you might want to do it on some string or some rope that's relatively flat. And, or a garden hose. And you can also draw an imaginary line with some chalk outside on the patio paps. So you're going to be stepping one foot in front of the other slowly so that your base of support is narrow. So your heel goes in front of your other toe on the other foot, and you repeat along the line. And you, can keep your arms out to the side like this, so that you're balancing. And you might feel a little bit of wobbling. So if you pause the video, now have that activity, and then you can rejoin me afterwards and we'll have a further look at it. So how now to demonstrate the tight rope walking, so, I will show you how I'm going to do it. And then you can give it a try yourself. So you can be imaginative with your, rope. You could use a, garden hose if you're doing outside, or you might want to draw some chalk, on a patio. I am using, a phone charger lead. So just make sure that you're not going to slip when you're using it. And you want it to be able to put one hand in front of the other to imagine that you're on a tight rope and then I'll give you some other options as well. So the first thing I want you to do is you're going to start off with, whatever foot you want to lead with. And then you're going to walk, along the line like this. So you're putting your, heel to you toe, and then you're doing exactly the same all the way along the line. And you're going to turn round. You're going to go heel toe, heel toe, heel toe heel toe, heel toe. Think about what you're doing with your arms. Have you got them down by your side? Are you putting them, out to your side, to get some balance? And if you're wobbling, that is fine, because that just means that you're working your, all those muscles, give you some information about where your body is in relation to, where you're moving. Some another way you might want to try. So it almost an extension of the activity is to sidestep along. So you're going to be going like this with your feet. So I'll show you now, and then you can have a go yourself as well. So you're going to, start off like this, and then we're going, to cross your legs over like this. So this can, might feel a bit awkward. You go one way fast, then you can go back to the other. So this is just challenging your balance in a slightly different way. Okay. So have a go at those ideas yourself. If you pause the video, now you can do that. And then, we start afterwards and you can join me again. So let's think a little bit more about the activity. How did you feel doing it? Did you feel like you were in the circus? that you could jump and come back down? Did you feel steady? or did you feel wobbly? I certainly felt wobbly. So, you can try sidestepping. So you cross each foot over the other as a challenge. So I demonstrated that in the video you just saw. And, what was happening in other areas of your body? So what were your arms doing? Did you have your arms up? as I suggested, to help your balance and correct. Any sort of wobbles that you had? or did you have them down by your side? So have a think about what your arms are doing. And do you want to add some more? or did you want to simplify it a little bit? So you can add more by going backwards. So doing the heel toe, but doing the backwards tight rope walk, and if it was too much, then have a bigger base of support. So perhaps don't put your heel all the way at your toe. You could take a bigger step, to feel more steady. So my suggestion would be pause the video again. Now try some of those other options and then rejoin me afterwards for the end of the lesson. Did you give a tightrope exercise, a try? I hope you enjoyed it. And you also found out a little bit more about dynamic balance today. So thank you very much for joining me today for our lesson. I hope you found it useful. Please join me next time in unit five, lesson seven, where we will be carrying on looking at balance and coordination. So what we'll be doing next time, is looking at an activity called a warrior to pose. So you might've heard this in yoga. So if you'd like to find out more, please join me then. So have a great rest of your day. Please take care and I'll see you very soon. Goodbye.

Dynamic balance

Dynamic balance

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