How to improve balance?

A complicated question. We spend our lives looking for it and many times I think we come to think that it doesn't even exist. But it does exist, we just may not be as aware of it, because it comes and goes. From something as small as a cell to something as large as an ecosystem, they have periods in which they are balanced. These periods are neither constant nor eternal, as the balance can be altered by different factors. And when this happens, there is only one thing that can restore it. But, speaking of us, how to improve the balance, can the Pilates help me to achieve it? Read on to find out.

Only the ability to adapt will allow a return to equilibrium.

In the case of an ecosystem, for example, its equilibrium can be affected by a multitude of factors, such as an earthquake, a hurricane or torrential rains. Depending on its ability to adapt to the new situation, it may be able to regain its equilibrium under the new conditions. The problem is that this may not last forever.

Let's imagine a tropical forest as a first scenario. If we start cutting down trees in that forest, the ecosystem will try to balance itself by regenerating to ensure its survival. But if we cut down more and more trees and do not give them time to regenerate, water and wind will wash nutrients out of the soil and this will prevent new trees from growing back. So our end result will be a desert.

We can transfer this explanation to any other example and I assure you that it would work in the same way. We can transfer it to the field of biology with the cell, to architecture with a building or to biomechanics with the human body. It all works in the same way.
They allow fantastic results to be achieved.

Balance in the human body

As with the ecosystem, there is always this constant search for balance. This is so because it allows the body to function and there are certain rules that must be complied with, for example, horizontality must be guaranteed in certain areas such as the visual, mandibular, vestibular or podal plane.

It must be taken into account that these are areas where our body has a large number of receptors that will give it information about its own position and the environment around it. Therefore, it will try not to sacrifice these areas, influencing the rest of the structure in order to find balance.

We are condemned to constantly seek balance

The human body is constantly readapting because it is exposed to a multitude of forces and stimuli that provoke small imbalances in it. Do you know why it is so exposed? Quite simply, because we are in constant movement.

The point is that the influence of these imbalances will depend on our ability to react to them. I will explain it better with another example:

Let's imagine an earthquake, but let's get out of the ecosystem scenario, among other things so that you don't think I have anything to do with Greenpeace. Suddenly there is an earthquake that destroys a large part of the buildings in the city. But looking around you realise that there are many small houses that have collapsed, while there are skyscrapers that have managed to stay standing. It would be logical to think that these small houses that were lower to the ground would suffer less than a building of such height. However, these houses were simple houses, built with rather flimsy materials that did not provide them with adequate stability. On the other hand, the skyscraper was built with this type of phenomenon in mind, i.e. it was an anti-seismic building.

How does the body react after an impact?

Well, the body reacts in the same way. Imagine that you receive a gentle impact, for example a push. At that moment your body quickly reacts so that you can keep your balance and not fall. Up to this point anyone can more or less save the situation. And besides, since it was a light force that your body has received, it will not have had to make too demanding adaptations and you will be able to undo it quickly, returning to a normal state.

Now imagine a stronger push that makes you fall to the ground. In this case, your body will have had to make much more effort, more abrupt, faster and more demanding to avoid the fall, because even though you have fallen, the body has previously tried to avoid it by all means. And in these cases the situation can be worse, because there could be a fixation of the adaptation that the body has made to rebalance itself.

And to make this clearer, the third example: Imagine you are in the car driving along the motorway. Suddenly you hit a traffic jam. You have time to brake, but the car behind you doesn't, so it crashes into you. This collision gives you whiplash, which I will talk about in future articles, and causes a series of associated symptoms. In these cases there is clearly a fixation produced by the back-and-forth movement of our cervical spine and skull due to the impact. However, it is curious to see how the consequences are sometimes worse in person A who suffers the second episode compared to the consequences suffered by person B in the third. Person B could be the anti-seismic skyscraper and person A the little house.

How can I be better prepared for an impact?

It all depends on the physical condition of the person. The better they are, the fewer consequences they will suffer from the impacts they receive. But be careful, it is not just a question of muscular strength. Of course, the stronger our muscles are, the more protection they give to our joints. But we must not forget about flexibility, which gives the muscle a greater and better capacity to adapt to the circumstances generated by those situations in which we receive an impact.

So, in conclusion, in short, a weak person or a person with shortened and stiff muscles will be more likely to suffer from fixations and their consequences, whereas a person with good muscle quality, possessing both strength and flexibility, will be much more able to avoid these fixations and body adaptations. Pilates is an excellent tool to achieve this combination of strength and flexibility, thus improving muscle quality and overall health.