Slipping into Fall- 7 Keys to Reduce the Likelihood of Falling
/I want to tell you a story about a woman in her upper 70’s who was commuting when her SUV broke down on the highway. Once the tow truck arrived on the scene, they determined her vehicle needed to be towed. The driver used a winch to pull her vehicle onto the upper portion of the sloped truck bed when the cable suddenly broke sending the vehicle rolling toward the woman. Being a trained Feldenkrais practitioner and martial artist, she had trained herself to be able to respond at a moment’s notice. She instinctively flattened herself to the ground just in time for the vehicle to roll over her without hitting her.
How comfortably and efficiently can you move to and from the ground? How prepared are you to take a fall? September is National Fall Prevention month and slip/trip accidents are consistently one of the most common sources of accidental injuries, sending approximately nine-million people to the emergency room every year.
As an outdoor athlete, I've had a lot of practice taking falls. Sometimes gracefully, and as my friends can attest to sometimes not so gracefully. Even walking on Seattle sidewalks can be dangerous! With a slightly bruised ego, I will admit falling on more than one occasion tripping on an elevated sidewalk panel on a dark sidewalk and walking away otherwise unharmed.
So what's the key to building up your inner resilience to prevent a fall or respond if you're already past the point of no return.
Situational and Spatial Awareness. How aware are you of your surroundings? Oftentimes, people trip/slip on things they don’t see. Do I even need to bring up texting while walking? If I’m walking on a sidewalk and see large trees covering the sidewalk ahead, I might want to pay more attention to the levelness of the sidewalk. Spatial awareness increases in importance when considering activities like mountain biking or skiing when you are moving at high velocity. Having the situational awareness of the dangers around you keeps you alert and processing your safety. Also, knowing if I were to fall, which direction is safest to fall.
Good posture- which I define as the state from where a person can move in any direction, at any time, without hesitation or preparation. It is the absence of unnecessary muscular contraction. When well organized, a person is free of parasitic muscular contraction which can inhibit their ability to react to a changing environment.
Balance/Counterbalance- Improved balance is achieved when the center of body mass is clearly organized above the base of support. I oftentimes see clients standing with their center of mass shifted to one side or another. When you perform a movement how clearly do you use the whole of yourself? As you move do you create a counterbalance within your body to clearly maintain your center of mass over the support of the surface you’re on?
Variation- being able to meet the demands of a changing environment through the ability to quickly adapt one’s self to novel conditions. How do you prepare yourself for this? You Train!!! The more potential pathways to the ground you’ve practiced the more prepared you’ll be to bring yourself to the ground versus fall to the ground.
Structural Integrity- How clearly can you translate force through your body? What parts of yourself fall into the ground as you move? How do you organize yourself to have the clearest and most efficient way to move away from the ground without engaging unnecessary musculature? When you’re well organized and using the support from the surface you’re on you can maintain a sense of lightness as your skeleton provides clear support.
Suppleness- how fluidly can you respond to the environment around you? If you have a very rigid stance and someone pushes your chest you will likely fall back. However, if you are fluid you may be able to absorb the force without falling. If you have a rigid sole, you may not be able to feel the rock you stepped on before you roll your ankle and fall which brings me to my last point.
Sensible Footwear- Please! When has it ever been a good idea to wear high heels when it’s icy out? Of flip flops in a construction site? Wearing the correct footwear in the right environment keeps you safer.
Falling is a reality of life and it happens to all of us. Why not put the odds in your favor by building your inner resilience and training yourself to more effectively come to and from the ground with the least effort and the most efficient path? The main point is to train yourself. You can have conceptual knowledge of what to do in the case of a fall, but if you haven’t developed your brain’s motor mapping and spatial awareness, conceptual knowledge doesn’t translate into better functional outcomes.
If you’re interested in developing these capacities within yourself my new movement workshop on “Developing your Inner Resilience” is the perfect place to begin. I hope to see you there!
