1. Close your Eyes and Count to 10
The next time you are standing in line at a movie theater, grocery store, post office or restaurant, stand on one foot. This is a great and easy way to create better balance in your downtime. You can also take this trick with you into the kitchen when you are preparing meals or sweeping the floor. To add a little more of a challenge, try closing your eyes.
2. Look, Ma; No Hands
Do you remember riding your bike for the first time? How about riding for the first time with no hands? That's quite a feat (mind you an ill-advised one). But the point is, in order to do it, you must have good balance. A great way to achieve this is by sitting on a Swiss ball with no hands and no floor contact whatsoever. You have to work up to the point where you can do this. Start out by sitting in a doorway where you can hold on to the jamb for support. Gradually tansition to a room where you can touch a table or stable object for support. Rely less and less on the object until you are ultimately levitating and there is nothing between you and the ground except a giant, inflated rubber ball.
3. Skeletons in the Health Club?
Here is a great way to acquire not only better balance, but better posture too. It's an exercise I refer to as “skeletons.” You are basically emulating the body position of those athletes who go head-first down a bobsled run on a little sled at speeds of 80 miles per hour or better. I give them a lot of credit; that takes guts. The closest I’ll ever get is doing this exercise. Lie across a Swiss ball on your stomach, then bring your legs together and extend them up in the air. You goal is to form a straight line from your heels to your shoulders. When you get to this position, slowly lift your hands off the floor and balance. This will also work your erector spinae muscles, which run down the lower part of the spine. That’s where the better posture comes in.
4. Do Unbalanced Training
The next time you do weight training, try standing on a BOSU or balance disks while performing your lifts. This way, you will be working your focus muscles, but you will also be working your stabilizers as well. This is called economy of exercise, and it is a great way to improve your balance. Another great thing about it is that you recruit a lot more core musculature, especially with overhead lifts.
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