Balance: the Quiet Foundation of Strength, Safety, and vitality

Balance is more than "not falling"

When you think of balance what comes to your mind? Is it the balance beam in gym class in grade school? Is it watching a ballerina soar and land perfectly? Is it trying out skiing/snowboarding/skateboarding/rollerblading for the first time and feeling shaky?

So often, we think of balance as it relates to athletic activities, especially when we are younger, but as we age, balance is so much more - it is how we move through life safely, confidently, and with ease.

Your balance is in play when you are carrying a heavy load of groceries while walking up your front stoop and opening the door. It is in play when you are holding your grandchild and trying to rock back and forth to lull them to sleep. It is present during intimacy, even.

Often, people consider balance too late. As a lifelong wellness skill, balance is important for everyone to work on - not just seniors or athletes. Working on balance creates neurological trust between your body and mind.

The 4 Systems That Create Balance (Whole-Body View)

Before we talk about how to care for and work on your balance (because it can't be as easy as just one thing ever, right?), let's get an understanding of your whole-body balance system.

The Nervous System & Proprioception

Our body is so wonderfully made that we are born with a nervous system that is tuned to keep us upright and safe. Proprioception is that built-in knowing of where your body is in space - even when your eyes are closed. Not only that, but when you trip or fall, your proprioception allows your body to "catch" itself and regain balance. What an awesome nervous system we have.

Vision & Inner Ear

Next on our journey through the body balance systems is your vision and inner ear stability. Vision is easy. We use our eyes to take in clues that help orient our bodies to up, down, left, right. This is why closing our eyes in yoga class can sometimes throw us off, but finding a drishti (a non-moving point in front of you) can keep you on balance.

Muscular Strength & Coordination

We know our core is important, but what about everything else? Balance starts at your foundation: your feet and ankles, and utilizes every inch of muscle through the hips, into the core. Small asymmetries can show up in balance, as well as affect your posture and mobility. Strengthening your muscle groups strategically for balance is key.

Breath & Pressure Management

Your breath is a stabilizing force for your body. So often, we forget about the importance of our breathing - from how we do it to how deeply we do it to how intentionally we do it at times. Engaging with proper breathing through breathwork can help properly engage the pelvic floor, which is the key to all balance.

Safety First: Balance as Fall-Prevention (Without Fear)

One of the leading causes of injury, especially as we age, is falls. So many falls are preventable, and with balance work, that rate increase dramatically.

Balance training improves reaction time, joint stability, and confidence in movement through strategic training. Modalities such as yoga and pilates can form habits in balance management that transcend into daily life. Standing tall uses your skeletal system and muscles, but balance gives you the ability to recover to that state, no matter the circumstance. We train balance to be capable, not because we are weak.

Pelvic Floor Strength: The Hidden Key to Balance

Solmira Wellness Collective is not just generic fitness and wellness content. We are dedicated to treating the entire person, the whole intricate human system.

This brings us to the somewhat elusive pelvic floor.

Your deep core, your pelvic floor, that requires a different kind of work.

When I was snowboarding, the "trick" to finding out if you ride regular or goofy was to have someone stand behind you and give you a shove, to see which foot you "save" yourself with. What we didn't realize was that balance recovery, as well as much of the sport, truly engages the pelvic floor.

Now most people think of Kegel exercises when they think of pelvic floor, and most people think of female bodies, but the pelvic floor is equally important to the male body and is a combination of coordination, relaxation, and timing that goes beyond kegels.

At Solmira, we not only provide hands-on and active pelvic floor work, but also utilize a passive treatment with the Emsella device, which engages your pelvic floor through electric stimulation. These combined therapy options can truly lead to not only balance benefit, but overall system functionality.

Solmira's Approach to Balance

In order to truly create a system of balance within a body, we work to integrate multiple aspects of health from pilates and functional strength to rehabilitation-informed movement practices like physical therapy, Erchonia laser treatments, chiropractic adjustments, gait analysis and orthotics casting and pelvic floor therapy. Our focus is on safety, awareness, education, progression, and nervous system support.

For us, balance isn't about holding still - it is about learning to respond, adapt, and move forward with confidence.