How To Train Better Balance and Efficient Movement

Let's talk a little bit about the cerebellum. The cerebellum is involved in movement, cognition, emotions, hormones, and autonomic functions. This week I will focus on its role in movement. To keep it simple, the cerebellum is responsible for the ABCs of movement: accuracy, balance, and coordination. Anytime you see an athlete perform exceptionally well like a great catch, beautiful looking swing, or amazing pass, they probably have a great functioning cerebellum.  If you want better balance or if you want smoother, more efficient movement, you might want to evaluate your cerebellum and integrate specific cerebellar work into your training. Important for training is that we have a left and a right side cerebellum. Sometimes you need to focus and train one side more.

Ready, Set, Go:

Assess your Cerebellum right now:

Assess Gait and Balance. 

Set up your phone to video record yourself. Walk 10 feet, pivot, and walk back. Steps should be balanced, equal with a regular pace while arms are swinging, and coordinated with walking. If you are walking with one or both of your hips internally rotated (pigeon-toed) and the same side shoulder (arm) internally rotated, this might be a sign of cerebellar dysfunction on that same side.

Rapid Foot Tapping

Quickly tap your foot on the floor as fast as possible. Perform for 10sec.  If you feel that the rhythm is off, the movement does not feel coordinated, you may want to train the same side cerebellum.

Rapid Alternating Movement

Place one hand over the next and flip the top hand back and forth (palm up, palm down) as fast as possible. Perform for 10sec. Notice if your hand does not flip accurately or off rhythm. This might be a sign to train your cerebellum on that side.

Fun Fact

Alcohol impacts your cerebellar function. If you get stopped by police and they perform the gait, balance assessment, and finger-nose test, they are assessing your cerebellum.

Cerebellar Drill: Finger Nose

Set up:

• Take five Post-it Notes and draw a dot on each one of them.
• Arrange the Post-it Notes on a wall in front of you so that there is one note directly in front of your nose. Place the other Post-Its in a square pattern with the first dot in the center (one in the upper left corner of your visual field, one in the upper right corner of your visual field, one in the lower-left corner of your visual field, and one in the lower right corner of your visual field).

Steps for performing the drill:

1. Pre-Assessment: I recommend using the Rapid Alternation Movement assessment from above. Place your right hand over the left. Perform the assessment.
2. Then, with the tip of your right index finger, alternate between touching the tip of your nose and the dots on each of the five Post-it Notes. The order does not matter.
3. As you are performing the drill, take note of how accurate your right arm is at touching your nose and touching the dots, and keep an eye out for tremoring as you approach the target.
4. Go through every dot twice.
5. Reassess with the Rapid Alternation Movement assessment. Did your hand flipping improve?
6. Finally, repeat the drill by assessing the left hand over the right. Use the left index finger and again, take note of how well you’re able to do it, and then reassess.  
7. Perform this exercise at home for 10–15 repetitions several times a day.

Note: Instead of the Rapid Alternation Assessment, you can also take a baseline level of performance for something you’re interested in improving. This could be a single joint range of motion, a multi-joint range of motion like a forward bend, a strength measurement, or pain that you’re trying to decrease on either side of the body. The Finger-Nose drill can be used as a drill or assessment.