Partners In Fitness places a great deal of attention on improving our client's balance and stability. We firmly believe that strength without balance is useless. This philosophy is becoming more and more mainstream. We attended a seminar 3 weeks ago in NYC in which two of the most honored and respected researchers in the field of exercise science, Dr. Don Chu and Juan Carlos Santana, spoke mainly on the importance of functional and balance training. Much of the material was a review for us but it is always good to see just how advanced we are as trainers compared to the rest of our industry.

It was also interesting to read an article published in the Major League Baseball National League Championship official program titled, "Not So Basic Training." This article focused on the "new" style of training athletes. No longer are players just pumping iron. Now medicine balls, balance boards, physioballs and dynadisks, all of which we have been using for years, are taking over the training rooms. It is becoming more and more obvious that balance and functional strength is extremely important in improving performance and preventing in injuries and can not be improved by doing bench presses, leg extensions or seated military presses.

So what does this mean for the rest of us who do not play professional sports? Statistics show that falls among older adults -- often the cause of serious injury -- can be prevented in many cases with a program of exercises specifically geared toward improving balance and posture.

The Journal of the American Geriatric Society reports that one-third of people over 65 fall at least once a year, many of them incurring injuries like broken hips that may never properly mend. Many experts believe that age-related falls are caused in part by a reduced sense of balance and a loss of ability to judge body placement. Aging causes a loss of sensitivity in special receptor cells, called proprioceptors -- found in the skin, muscles, joints and tendons -- that process information about the body's orientation as it moves through space. As the sensitivity of these cells diminishes with age, they provide the brain with less of the sensory information it needs to maintain balance. Slower reflexes and decreased muscle strength, combined with loss of eyesight and depth perception, also contribute to a diminished sense of equilibrium.

But there is evidence that older adults can reduce or reverse some of these effects by including in their fitness regimen exercises geared toward improving balance, and, as a result, become less accident-prone. A 1996 study performed at the Department of Neurology at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Hartford looked at 110 elderly men and women. After three months of regularly performing movements aimed at sharpening balance, the vast majority of subjects restored a level of body control and posture stability similar to those three to 10 years younger.