Balance exercises

[justamoose]

Anyone know of good exercises to improve balance?

[riley876]

One legged deadlifts.   Balance being as much about strength as reflexes.

Maybe also examine your posture?  In particular bend your knees and ankles more, and arch your back less, i.e. minimise the concavity.  The idea is to have nothing at the limits of it's range of movement.

What exactly are you having issues with?

[justamoose]

I know I have bad posture (hunching forward), so sometimes I try to over compensate by arching my back too much. I can't seem to find the middle.

Also, I just feel like my overall level of comfort on the ice is definitely lacking. I skated when I was a kid, and learned fast, but stopped after a couple of months. I was already doing backwards crossovers. I've been skating for a little less than a month now as an adult (2-3x a week), and I'm still on that learning fast kick. My coach giving me private lessons has said that I could technically go on to Adult 5, but still might put me in Adult 4 just because the perfection of those skills is not quite there. And a lot of that is stemming from the fact that I still don't feel all that comfortable on the ice. My balance in life in general is not that great, so I know there is a little bit of fear there. I'm assuming this will also come with time too, right? Either way, I feel like improving my balance (even for every day walking down the street safety...ha!) will help.

[Loops]

Have you considered yoga? A lot of those postures require balance.....

You could also get a balance ball and practice just standing on one foot.

Good balance is also about core strength, you use your abs, and glutes even, to stabilize. So anything that strengthens those areas will help, too.

[lutefisk]

Loops beat me to the punch but I will second the recommendation for yoga and stability ball exercises.  With the stability ball it would be good to get input from a chiropractor or PT person to dial in exercises specific for your needs.  Also it's important to not sit all day on a ball.  Just use it for group of exercises, number of reps/sets prescribed and then get off it until you repeat those exercises, perhaps later the same day. 

Yoga, especially core yoga, will over time, give you the strength to use the increased proprioception provided by the ball exercises.  In my mind the two go hand in hand.

I've been doing both in conjunction with chiropractic adjustments and electric stimulation of my lower back and am just now noticing improvements for skating elements which involve my weak (left) hip and leg.

[Doubletoe]

I agree with the balance ball suggestion.  However, I also have to say that a lot of the balance I've learned in skating is simply from being told by my coach HOW to align my body.  I would never have known that just from practicing balancing on my own.  For example, in order to keep your weight over the balls of your feet while skating, you need to keep your chest over your knees over your toes, with your back a little arched.  In order to keep your weight over your right side (in a backspin, for example),you need to keep the right shoulder back, the left arm in front and the left hip closed with the heel of the free foot in front of the shin of the skating foot.  There are also specific body positions for forward crossovers, back crossovers, 3-turns, etc., to keep your body aligned and balanced correctly.

[Alibee]

I saw a video on front and back leg scales that looks like fun: https://youtu.be/ilBByuwM8hk and it also has some advanced combinations that look similar to what I've seen in some of the power skating classes.