When someone loses their physical fitness, one of the most common things that is noticed is a decrease in quickness. Working with individuals with limited mobility and strength, I often find that this is the case. Trying to work on their agility and quickness through a variety of drills is the tactic that I employ to help them get back their overall ability to move fast through space. This is one of the fun aspects of my job. I really get to use my creativity to make the workouts not only fun, but also applicable and serve a purpose for the individuals that I get to work with. As agility and quickness is the topic of the post today, we will be showing you a great exercise that you can do by yourself to improve your agility and quickness to hopefully reduce falls in turn!

Before you are able to participate in this exercise, you will need a small amount of equipment. In the video, I referenced needing either a lacrosse ball or tennis ball. Both of these work okay, however the lacrosse ball will bounce a little higher, potentially making the drill easier. You can find either of these items, below:

Lacrosse ball: https://amzn.to/38dfYDL

Tennis ball: https://amzn.to/3L6wyUp

For the ball drop exercise, you are going to start with your feet hip width apart. Then:

• Toss the ball out in front of you (not too far)
• Let the ball bounce once.
• Once the ball bounces, quickly spring forward with either foot and catch the ball.
• Repeat the movement with both feet, to make sure one leg does not get more work than the other.

The great thing about this exercise is that it isn’t too taxing on the body, allowing you to complete and practice this numerous times. In addition to this, it allows your body to practice moving in an endless amount of ways. If you want to work on bending over lower, drop the ball lower. If you want to practice your overhead reaching, you can throw the ball higher, making the ball bounce more. In addition you can add an extra challenge into this, by having someone else through the ball for you. You should still allow the ball to bounce before attempting to catch it, making the movement much difficult due to the uncertainty of the bounce. One of the best ways to improve anything fitness related is to consistently practice it! This is a great exercise to try out to get your quickness back up. Let me know how it goes for you!!

We are here to help you not just survive in your life, but THRIVE!

#inclusivefitness #weareallstrong #dontjustsurvivethrive #allstrongfitnessllc #individualswithdisabilities #specialneedsfitness #seniorfitness