Kay joined the same gym as me awhile back and took advantage of the complementary wellness checkup. He came home and told me his balance was awful. My balance has always been OK, but while I was buying my official running shoes, the salesmen recommended that I think about buying some balance balls to strengthen my ankles and feet for running because they seemed a little weak after looking at the analysis scans.

Normally I don’t buy into extras like this. I actually went home and didn’t buy the balls for a couple weeks, but eventually I thought it would be a good idea for us to try them out. The balls came in a pack of two. They have a flat side to rest on the floor and spikes to stimulate the blood flow in the feet.

To use them, I stand with one foot on the ball while I brush my teeth. We have electric toothbrushes that buzz four times for the different sides of the mouth, and top and bottom, so after two buzzes I switch feet. The whole thing takes about a minute and a half and I only do it at night because the salesman said once a day should be enough.

I finally had my own wellness checkup this week where they tested my balance and I was pretty darn good! I was almost exactly in the middle of the “green zone” and the trainer said that most often, people are completely in the red zone and that he was really impressed.

Kay is still working on his balance, but he’s a little less consistent about doing it every night, although he did start doing it in the morning as well. Maybe at his next checkup, he’ll have improved a significant amount! It is a small way to improve stability.

Do you make any small efforts to improve your health or multitasking efforts to work exercise into your daily routine?