Your Eyes, Your Mind, And Balance
Recently, one of our fitness friends was reviewing HowToImproveBalance.com and asked, “What muscles exactly are used to maintain balance?” A good question!
The answer is that there are a whole lot of muscles that are involved in maintaining your balance, but only to a small degree. Your leg muscles will be involved, like your quadriceps and your calves. Your hip flexors will be uses, as will your abdominal muscles to a degree. But none of your muscles are as involved at maintaining your balance as your mind …
The mind, of course, is extremely powerful. Balance is a function of maintaining your equilibrium, and that has everything to do with your mind. If, for example, you lean too far forward and are in danger of toppling over, your mind (your brain actually) will activate the necessary muscles to bring you quickly back into balance. That’s why any of the balance exercises we share here on this site are as much (or more) to do with training your brain than training your actual muscles …
Your Eyes And Balance Skills
Your eyes also play a crucial role in balance skills. We always recommend you focus your eyes on a stationary place on the opposite wall … something like a painting, a clock, or a beam. This keeps your head still and allows you to remain in equilibrium.
However, you don’t need great eyesight to have great balance skills. In fact, we knew a visually impaired person a few years back who probably had better balance skills than 99% of people in the world. He could easily walk a balance beam without the slightest wobble … it was uncanny! Which only goes to show the power of the mind. His brain was acutely trained and his body responded.
There’s an old saying … “You can believe you can do something, or you can believe you can’t. You’re probably right either way.” Bottom line, if you believe in your mind that you can perform a particular skill, and train your brain to believe it and perform it, chances are great you’ll be successful with that skill (within reason, of course!). But it’s very important to understand the crucial role your mind has when it comes to physical balance skills …
