Balance

Develop your Balance, it’s critical to daily life!

The essential element to all human movement is balance; we can’t move effectively without it. Maintaining the ability to balance is naturally important to everyone. To prevent injury and stay mobile, maintaining balance ability is especially crucial for athletes and for most everyone as they age.

Our balance depends on our ability to maintain our center of gravity over our base of support (normally, our feet!). And our bodies determine the balance equation using vision, the vestibular system (the internal ‘gyroscope’ in our inner ear), and our proprioception system. More simply put – this is the body’s sensory system that processes and coordinates sensations of touch, pressure, and vibration, muscle activities that perceive our body parts’ relative positions to each other. These sensory tools also send our body and brain signals and feedback about our body’s position in space.

Our ability to maintain balance depends on good function of all these factors. Since rebounding is an exercise that hones so many sensory systems and physical abilities it’s an excellent activity to help keep you balanced, mobile and healthy.

Using a rebounder to improve and maintain your balance is naturally beneficial for several reasons. The jumping mat of a rebounder flexes in all directions, which means the mat creates a very challenging stimulus for your sensory systems. Rebounding also creates a condition of constantly varying gravitational force on your body throughout a jumping cycle. The motion of bouncing up and down – working with and against gravity – is a break in your normal rhythm of movement and forces. This additional dimension added to your range of motion, creates an extremely effective balance exercise. By demanding your body’s response to these variations, rebounding invigorates your balance system to help ensure it stays strong and healthy.

Balance Building Basics:

Here are some bouncing exercises to try that will help you build and maintain your best balance. Please see the Fitness Trampoline website for more bouncing routines.

Tip: If you do these exercises barefoot, it will further stimulate your sensory receptors related to balance!

For any of these exercises, if you need to, stick out your arms for extra help:
Level 1: Simply start by standing on the rebounder with your eyes closed.
Level 2: Stand on the rebounder on one leg.
Level 3: Bounce gently on the rebounder keeping your feet leaving the mat.
Level 4: Bounce gently on the rebounder – keeping your feet on the mat –, but keep your eyes closed.
Level 5: Bounce on the rebounder, (eyes open) so that your feet leave the mat
Level 6: Bounce and leave the mat, this time keep your eyes closed
Level 7: Jump on the rebounder side-to-side, or front to back
Level 8: Jump on the rebounder side-to-side or front to back on one leg.