5 Things You Can Do to Improve Strength and Balance

Muscle is our metabolic organ and helps prevent insulin resistance. As we age, we naturally lose muscle mass in a process called sarcopenia. Unless we take active steps to counter this, we become frail, lose function and increase falls.

Not a recipe for a long happy life. 

5 Exercises That Improve Strength and Balance That Take No Extra Time

Exercise #1

Practice standing on one leg while you brush your teeth. You may need to start slow just doing 10-15 seconds but then aim to increase to a full minute and then swap legs.

Exercise #2

Practice doing side steps when you are waiting for the kettle to boil. We spend a lot of time walking forward but we need to practice side-to-side motions as well to prevent falls.

Exercise #3

When you get out of bed in the morning plant 2 feet on the ground and stand up without using your hands on your thighs. If this is easy, do it 10 times. Do this every time you stand up from a chair or get off the toilet. By the end of the day, you will have done 100 squats.

Exercise #4

When you are in your kitchen, practice walking backwards. Make sure there is nothing on the floor. If you need to hold onto the bench. Practising walking backwards is good for our brains and helps us stops you from toppling backwards if you lose your balance.

Exercise #5

Focus on your pelvic floor and core muscles whenever you are doing housework. Pick one activity such as emptying the washing out of the machine or unpacking the shopping. When you do this pay attention, contract your pelvic muscles and draw in your abdominals.

The Power of Small Steps 

Add one or more of these into your routine and you will experience profound benefits. We'd love to know which one you implement.

These are simple enough that you can get started right away

As always at Real Life Medicine, our aim is to give you the...

• Strategies to improve your metabolism
• Skills to develop your mindset and
• Tools to make it easy to implement

The Friday 5 at 5 is part of this structure. We hope you find it useful!

With love and great health

Dr Lucy and Dr Mary XX

Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy are the founders of Real Life Medicine. They help women who have been on every diet under the sun, optimise their health and achieve long lasting weight loss without feeling miserable or deprived.

They do this with their 3 step framework that

• Improves metabolism
• Develops mindset skills
• Provides tools to implement it easily into busy lives

With this comes increased energy, vitality and confidence.

You can avoid chronic disease and stop living life on the sidelines!