Balance Exercises You Can Do at Home (and How to Progress Them)

Why balance is worth training on purpose

Balance is a skill. Practise it and it improves; ignore it and it fades, the same as anything else your body learns. The falls research shows how much it matters. A Cochrane review pooled 108 trials and more than 23,000 people aged 60 and over, and found that exercise reduces the rate of falls by about 23 percent. Programmes built mainly on balance and functional exercises did most of that work, cutting falls by about 24 percent. (Sherrington 2019.) A 2024 review done for prevention guidelines landed in the same place: of everything tried, exercise has the most consistent benefit. (Pillay 2024.)

You don't have to be over 60 for any of this to apply. The same systems run your balance at 30 (ankles, hips, eyes, inner ear), and they respond to the same training. The research just measured the age group where a fall costs the most.

Six balance exercises you can do at home

Do these next to a wall, a bench or the kitchen counter, so a hand is always within reach. Shoes off is fine on a safe floor.

1. One-leg stand. Stand tall, lift one foot a few centimetres, hold. Aim for 30 seconds a side. Everything else builds on this one.
2. Tandem stand. One foot directly in front of the other, heel touching toe, as if you were on a beam. Hold 30 seconds, then swap the front foot.
3. Heel-to-toe walk. The tandem stand, moving. Ten slow steps along a line on the floor, turn, come back.
4. Sit to stand. From a chair, stand up without your hands, sit back down slowly. Ten reps. This one is really leg strength, and leg strength is half of balance.
5. Weight shifts. Feet hip-width apart, shift your weight slowly onto one leg until the other foot goes light, then back. Twenty slow shifts. Tai chi, not rocking.
6. Step-ups. One stair or a low, sturdy box. Up left, up right, down, down. Ten each side, and slow on the way down.

Ten minutes covers all six. Three times a week is enough to feel a difference inside a month. The trials that reduced falls ran for months, though, so treat this as a habit rather than a course you finish.

The one rule for progressing

Every balance exercise gets harder along the same four dials. Turn one at a time.

Once you can hold a one-leg stand for 60 seconds, eyes closed, on a cushion, you've run out of dials at home. That's when you add movement and surprise, and that's also where it gets fun.

When home gets too easy

Standing still is where balance training starts. What keeps you upright in real life is reactive balance: the kerb you didn't see, the dog, the wet floor. Training that means moving, landing and adjusting, ideally somewhere soft with someone watching.

A sprung floor or a trampoline is exactly that. In a randomised trial, a 12-week mini-trampoline programme improved balance, functional mobility, gait and strength, and reduced fear of falling, in older women with low bone density. (Posch 2019.) A 2021 review compared exergames (balance training as a video game) with traditional exercise and found both improved balance in healthy older adults. (Chen 2021.) Read that as permission: balance training you enjoy works as well as balance training you put up with.

Our coached sessions are the reactive version. Every jump is a small balance problem your body has to solve, on a surface designed for landing, with a coach spotting. If the home drills above have stopped being hard, that's your next dial.

FAQ

How often should I do balance exercises?

Little and often. Three to five short sessions a week, ten minutes each, is the pattern most of the programmes in the research used. Balance is a skill, so how often you practise matters more than how long.

How long until I notice a difference?

Most people hold a one-leg stand noticeably longer within two to four weeks. The falls reductions in the research came from programmes that ran for months, so keep going past the point where it feels easy.

I get dizzy, or I've had a fall recently. Should I do these?

See your GP first. Dizziness, a recent fall, osteoporosis, or a condition that affects your nerves or inner ear all change what's safe for you. A physiotherapist can build a version of these exercises for your situation and check your progress. Nothing here replaces that.

Is trampolining safe if my balance is poor?

That's a question for the coach on the day. What I can tell you is that we start everyone on the floor and on the wall before anything leaves the ground, sessions are adults-only and small, and every move is coached. If you can do the six exercises above with a hand near the wall, you can start.

Ready for the moving version? Our guided sessions in Brookvale are for adults, in groups of four, with a coach for every jump. Book a session at Run The Wall. And if you're over 50 and wondering whether bouncing is for you, we looked at the research on that too.

References

• Sherrington, C., et al. (2019). Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. PMID 30703272
• Pillay, J., et al. (2024). Falls prevention interventions for community-dwelling older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis of benefits, harms, and patient values and preferences. Systematic Reviews. PMID 39593159
• Chen, Y., et al. (2021). Comparison between the effects of exergame intervention and traditional physical training on improving balance and fall prevention in healthy older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation. PMID 34819097
• Posch, M., et al. (2019). Effectiveness of a mini-trampoline training program on balance and functional mobility, gait performance, strength, fear of falling and bone mineral density in older women with osteopenia. Clinical Interventions in Aging, 14, 2281-2293.