Why do you fall? Yes, you may be clumsy, have a muscle imbalance, or that inner ear thing is acting up… but none of those are the cause of your tumble. You fall simply because your centre of gravity is pulling you down.
Movement is really just a bunch of transitions from unstable to stable positions. In other words, what we use to get from point A to point B. Whether that is to pick up the keys you dropped, or just walking through the store.
There are three things to take note of when figuring out if you’re in a stable position:
- Centre of Gravity;
- Line of Gravity, and;
- Base of Support (BOS).
Your centre of gravity is not always within your physical body, but instead inside the space it occupies. To find your centre of gravity, imagine drawing a box that outlines all the furthest points of your body and then imagine drawing diagonal lines from the corners of that box. Your centre of gravity is where all the points meet.
The base of support refers to the area beneath you that includes every hand, foot, nose and elbow in contact with the supporting surface. When we stand, the base of support is the area beneath our body, and is determined by how wide apart our feet are.
Your line of gravity is another imaginary line drawn vertically from your centre of gravity to the ground. This is what is going to tell you if you’re going down. If your line of gravity lands outside your base of support that’s when you know to brace yourself for impact.
Having an understanding for your centre of gravity and the role it plays in the physics of your body will not only help you train safer, but also allow you to be more efficient with how you move.
So, if your goal is simply not falling, all you have to do is find a stable position and stay there – perhaps an excellent excuse to have a nap. But, of course that’s not very practical long term; so now your next steps are building your strength, flexibility, mobility and overall balance to find stability in all your movements, even when passing through unstable positions.
If you’d like more information on stability programs, let’s chat!