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Achieving Agility at any Age
Sun,Jul 28, 2024 at 06:34AM by Carla Mullins
Balance is an important system of our body and it is something that as Pilates Movement practitioners we are constantly incorporating into our clients’ program to support their quality of life. At times I see people confuse balance and agility and not appreciate that whilst the concepts are related they are different and both should be considered in progressing our programming with clients of any ages.
What is agility?
Agility can be used to describe mind and body and both are important for quality of life. Sheppard and Young (2006) defined agility from the perspective of sports as a “rapid whole body movement with change of direction or velocity in response to a stimulus”. However, for the average person a broader definition would be the ability to quickly change and respond the body’s position to the environment.
For many clients’ agility is more about the ability to recover from tripping on a tree root on the footpath or a scooter whizzing past you when you are trying to carry the shopping or travelling through airports. To be able to stay upright requires the integration of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance.
We need to understand the broad system of balance – The ability to maintain equilibrium when stationary or moving (i.e., not to fall over) through the coordinated actions of our sensory functions (eyes, ears and the proprioceptive organs in our joints);
The specific skills of agility are:
Static balance – The ability to retain the center of mass above the base of support in a stationary position;
Dynamic balance – The ability to maintain balance with body movement; an equal distribution of weight;
Speed – The ability to move all or part of the body quickly;
Strength – The ability of a muscle or muscle group to overcome a resistance,
Coordination – The ability to control the movement of the body in co-operation with the body’s sensory functions (e.g., in catching a ball [ball, hand, and eye coordination]).
It is important to remember that each of these skills/systems should be trained independently for mastery of each skill and then overlaid into the integrated into the state of agility.
In a series of article we will explore ways that we can train each of these skills in a movement class and how we then work to incorporate these to achieve agility.
I will start this series by updating an a’rticle I wrote and shared in 2019 in which we focus on the balance systems. In subsequent articles I will explore static and dynamic balance, speed , strength and coordination.
Balance Senses and Systems Include:
The balance system in our body incorporates three major senses, namely:
// Visual – what we are seeing
// Proprioception – where we are in space and how to maintain posture in relation to gravity
// Vestibular – how our head is sitting in space and our head righting response in relation to gravity
All of these senses feed back to part of our brain called the cerebellum. To learn more about it you can try our online Introduction to Neuroanatomy course, which explains many of the neurological terms and concepts that you will read in this article. The cerebellum is situated at the back of our head and is essentially the coordination or headquarters for all of the sensory information about where we are in space, and what we are seeing. The cerebellum coordinates our motor responses that stop us from falling.
Remember, there are three major systems of the body when it comes to the balance systems:
// Sensory systems – visual, proprioception, vestibular
// Processing systems – cerebellum and other major nerve control systems
// Skeletal & muscular systems – which are needed to respond and move. Your eyes have muscles as well, so even they need to be trained just as much as the muscles of the legs etc.
All three of these systems need to be considered and focused on when you are working with clients – just lifting weights is not enough. An understanding of the cognitive processes that are called upon in Pilates and Gyrotonic classes is essential to appreciate why these classes are so effective in helping with balance outcomes.
The Visual System, what is it?
The visual system is constantly adjusting to make sure our eyes don’t blur when we move our head. The eyes can stay fixed on a spot and focused when we move the head, which is important when we are doing multiple things. This ability is attributable to the Vestibular Ocular Reflex (VOR).
Try this little test to understand the Vestibular Ocular Reflex:
*write your name on a piece of paper
*look at the piece of paper and move it rapidly whilst keeping your head still and eyes fixed on your name
*now keep the paper still and keep your eyes fixed on your name whilst you turn your head from side to side
The eyes see things in space so we don’t trip over them. This can become a bit of a problem for people with glasses or cataracts, as their peripheral vision can become affected, potentially resulting in trips or bruises on their sides. I have to admit I have a very high level of myopia and am constantly tripping on things. This loss of vision in our peripheries can become an issue as we get older, as cataracts are quite common. Remember also that cataracts are a common side effect of medications such as glucocorticoids – often used to treat inflammatory conditions like asthma (in Australia 12% of the population has Asthma), or Rheumatoid Arthritis (in Australia about 2-3% of the population have this condition).
If you don’t have poor vision, try putting your hands up to the sides of your eyes, as if you have horse blinkers on. Now just walk around and note how clumsy you have become.
Some ideas that can be incorporated into a Pilates class include:
// Closing the eyes when doing some standing or walking exercises.
// Having the person do pivot work whilst they are looking into a dark corner, and have them pivot to a light part of the room. The idea being to train people to have faster adjustment of their eyes. Remember many falls occur at dawn and dusk or when a person moves from a dark room to a light room.
// Not using terms like fix your eyes on a spot, to help you balance. I know I hear this term often from yoga teachers and while this cue is great for a temporary balance it can create over reliance on the visual system for balance, which can then lead to problems when we can’t rely on our eyes, e.g. when we are needing to adjust our eyes. The lesson from this is to constantly keep the movement cues varied and appropriate so that you are not creating new compensatory patterns.
// Some ideas would be to incorporate eye disassociation exercises into your class, e.g. the head series on the CoreAlign or Jump Stretch Board. There are some great ideas that are used in the Feldenkrais method as part of the sensory awareness training for the eyes.
Safety Precautions for balance and falls
It is important to remember that dizziness and vestibular conditions can be a consequence of significant medical problems e.g. multiple sclerosis, stroke or Parkinson’s Disease. I recall a time with a particular client when I had noticed a deterioration in her gait pattern over the course of a month or so. She also seemed to be constantly dizzy, so I insisted that she go to a doctor. I told her that I would not allow her at the studio until she had done so, so she started going to a different practice. Two months later she rang to let me know that I had been correct in my concern. She had been experiencing a brain bleed and was having surgery to have a shunt placed in her brain. She had not wanted to go to the doctor because of a family history of Parkinson’s disease which meant that she was understandably concerned and did not want to confront the issue. It seemed that her existing Pilates teachers had observed changes in her that the new practice had not detected or thought to act on. The moral of the story is, if you observe unusual gait or movement changes in a client, find ways to help them follow up and check on these issues.
Some tips for teachers:
// Remember that conditions like drop foot can increase a person’s risk of falling, so it’s good to incorporate exercises for feet into your movement class. Some ideas for working with drop foot can be found in this article.
// Balance practice should be done near a wall or a place in which a person has support structures to grab onto for safety if needed
// Make sure steps and trip hazards are clearly marked or minimised
// Don’t place someone into an unsafe position like standing on a reformer, bosu, or balancing with heavy weights, unless there is appropriate support in place and it is suitable for the person’s ability
// Know the signs of stroke
// Make sure you have clients follow up with their doctor if they are having repeated concerns about vestibular or balance issues
Carla making sure Manuel is not going to fall when he is doing balance exercises
Remember when working with clients it is more than just “muscular strength” that we are working with, it is also about neural responsiveness. Furthermore, it is important for your clients to know that your focus is ultimately their overall quality of life. This quality of life comes from good movement patterns and their ability to continue to engage in the world around them. If you can work together as a team in which your client owns responsibility for their health, then you are part of the way towards achieving a great outcome.
In preparing this article I would like to say a special thank you for the specialist training courses about Central Vestibular Disorders as provided by Dr Carlo Rinaudo from the Brain Hub. His generous and passionate knowledge and understanding of this topic is inspiring, and has encouraged us to work further in improving the balance of our clients, and knowledge of movement practitioners around this important topic.
For those interested in some of the practical ways of incorporating agility into your practice this will be one of the topics covered in the Makarlu Masterclass on Friday 9 August in Brisbane. This masterclass can be accessed by zoom. You can always book a class with us to focus specifically on balance. For our clients we are always incorporating balance and agility as part of our focus.
References
M. Sheppard; W.B. Young (September 2006), “Agility literature review: classifications, training and testing”, Journal of Sports Sciences, 24 (9): 919–932, doi:10.1080/02640410500457109, PMID 16882626, S2CID 25145679