3 Exercises to Help Kids with Balance
Balance is pretty important. It helps keep us safe, it helps keep our posture aligned, and it can strengthen our bones and muscles. A lack of balance might indicate some challenges your child is having with sight, proprioception, or even core strength. The good news is that there are so many yoga poses and movement techniques to work on stabilizing the ankles, the core, and the relationship between our internal and external relationship with space. Accessibility in yoga is important so that anyone can enjoy the practice!
Why does it matter?
Kids who struggle with balance are more prone to injury, backaches (due to weakened abdominal and back muscles), and lower self-confidence in their body. We want kids to love the body they are in and to fall in love with nutritious movement too.
So what three activities do you propose?
Ankle rises/tip-toe rocks. The ankles play a huge role in overall balance and steadiness. By conditioning the joint and its surrounding muscles, children can increase their balance at their base! Our feet are responsible for so much, yet, we tend to use our ankles the same way repetitively. How to do it? Stand on your tip toes and slowly come down to the heel 10x in a row. You can do this in a chair too!
Side-to-side rocks/penguin. As above, this exercise uses the ankles, but now incorporates the quadriceps and the deep core muscles. It wakes the muscles for a unique task (i.e lateral movement) and recruits the inner ear for greater stability thus training the body and mind for greater proprioception. How to do it? Rock like a penguin to the right, reaching the right hand down toward the ground until you feel like you are this close to falling and then rock to the other side! If seated, rock side-to-side and reach toward ground.
Adapted tree pose. Tree pose with a little bit of assistance is fantastic for testing our balance and strength after the above two exercises. It is important that kids can have a victory and feel confident in trying new things. That’s why adapted tree is a perfect stepping stone! How to do it? Stand on the right foot and place the left foot and heel right alongside it while holding onto a chair or wall. Press the left heel into the right ankle but keep both feet touching the ground! If seated, reach hands up and move feet the same way.
Enjoy our short little video for visual cues.
After you try these, tell us what you think! Be sure to join our awesome group too ;)