Forget The Facelift--This Gives Your Age Away!

We go to great lengths--facelifts, hair color, botox, fillers.... to obscure our age but there's one dead giveaway....

How long can you stand on 1 leg? How about your nondominant leg?

It's a reliable predictor of how old you are and indicative of your fall risk.

Better than gait or grip strength, it integrates balance and strength in a way that other tests don’t--balance, since you have to stay vertical over a small base and strength, because one leg is holding up all the rest of you!

A recent study found that participants over the age of 50 could stand on their nondominant leg for 17 seconds. There was a dramatic drop-off around the age of 65.

The average for those older than 65 was 11 seconds--some barely made it 2 seconds.

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The study author said, "If you can’t stand on your leg for five seconds, you’re at risk of falls. If a person can stand on their leg for 30 seconds, they’re doing really well, especially if they’re older.”

Another study found the inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds was associated with a higher risk of death from any cause within 7 years.

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How do you improve your balance?

People often tell me that they practice standing on one leg to do something like brushing their teeth.

The problem is that we don't spend our lives standing like storks.

I agree with a Yale doctor whose take on just standing on one leg was, "No doubt, with practice, you could get your numbers way up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthier. It’s like 'teaching to the test.'

You might score better on the standardized exam but you didn’t really learn the material."

That's another way of saying that just practicing 1-leg balance will get you better at 1-leg balance.

While every step we take requires balancing on one leg at a time, our 1-leg "balancing" is dynamic, not static, requiring a combination of balance, strength, and coordination.

People often think of balance as primarily an inner ear issue but we've found that it's most often a weakness issue.

Strength training improves balance, even in the elderly.​

Sometimes muscles are weak.

Sometimes stabilizers aren't doing their job. That one step you take when your knee rotates inward can cause you to fall.

No one at any age wants to fall but the stakes are usually higher the older we get.

More than 1 in 4 people ages 65 and older fall every year. It's a leading cause of injury and injury-related death for older adults.

Functional strength training makes you stronger, addresses muscle imbalances, and teaches you movement patterns that help you stay well-balanced.

You'll appear to be younger than your years--nonsurgically! 😉