Why Your Balance Gets Worse With Age (& How It Doesn’t Have To)

Will Harlow, the over-50s specialist physio, gives us a neat trick:

As easy as A-B-C

Fun fact: age itself is not the primary cause of declining balance (your body neither knows nor cares how many times you have flown around the sun, per se). Rather, reduced ankle mobility and poorer proprioception (your body’s awareness of joint position) are the main culprits.

Now, why ankles are key: proprioceptive nerves in the ankles send information to the brain about foot position and movement, helping you make rapid balance corrections when standing or walking. Take that ability away, and you can guess what happens.

A good answer to this problem, then, is to do the “ankle alphabet“: sit comfortably, lift one foot, and use your big toe as if it were a pen to trace letters or spell your name in the air, then repeat with the other foot.

The idea here is not about the letters themselves; it’s to improve ankle mobility, coordination, and proprioceptive awareness by moving the ankle through multiple directions and ranges of motion, rather than just repeating the same quite limited (and repetitive) movements.

So, in essence, it keeps your ankle on its toes, so to speak!

For more on this plus some other exercises you can do (but really, that one alone will make a huge difference), enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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90% Of People Over 50 Fail This Balance Test. Will You?

Take care!