Many people consider themselves to have horrible balance and coordination. Maintaining balance can become challenging for many reasons. Weakened muscles, changes to our eyes and ears, certain medical conditions and medications can all contribute to losing balance, in addition to various other issues. However, there are ways to improve upon this. Why does it even matter? Well balance training repairs damaged pathways to the brain, strengthens weakened stabilizing muscles, and teaches the body new strategies for keeping itself upright. What’s more? Jumping over puddles, standing on a ladder and playing sports all require balance, so a little improvement goes a long way.

Here are five tips to improve your own balance:

1) Incorporate balance exercises into your strength training regimen – Do unilateral exercises (one arm or one leg at a time) or by changing your stance. Use a split stance which requires more balance than a wide stance. Even harder, stand on one leg.

2) Keeping your legs closer together when exercising – Balance is your ability to maintain your center of gravity over your base of support. When you are standing up, your legs are your base of support. The wider your legs are, the easier it is to balance. The narrower your legs, the more challenging it is. Keep your legs closer together when doing some exercises to gradually improve your balance.

3) Get an exercise ball – Besides using an exercise ball for numerous exercises, try sitting on it when watching television or using the computer. Sitting on an exercise ball like this when doing your daily activities will work on your balance almost subconsciously and quickly adapt your muscles to this.

4) Tandem walk – Improve you balance by tandem walking as if you were walking on a tight rope or the narrow edge of a board. To tandem walk, place one foot directly in front of the other, with the heel of the forward foot touching the toe of the lagging foot. Now place the lagging foot in front of the forward foot with its heel touching the toe. Continue walking in this heel-toe manner. You should do this where you can support yourself in case you lose balance. A narrow hallway is a good place to try this.

5) Do Yoga – Doing yoga is perhaps the best way to improve your balance and one of the best overall workouts you can have. With yoga, you can do it all. Yoga increases your balance, stability, flexibility and muscular endurance. Concentrating on yoga poses will help you strengthen your abdominal muscles and back muscles to drastically improve your balance. You need a yoga mat in order to work on your poses.