Having good balance requires challenging your balance - ie: standing on one leg while brushing my teeth and things like that. Closing my eyes and trying not to take out my teeth on the bathroom sink, things like that. But I never got much better at it. I always needed a stick to help with the Russian squats during Pilates. What was I missing? The answer was strength, and even more important, balanced strength.

For other reasons (mainly the red-headed therapist we call Russ), I started doing hip strengthening exercises. So now I was not just standing on one leg, I was standing on one leg with a theraloop around my knees while brushing my teeth. I have always been into multi-tasking and this was really cool.  

After a few weeks, lo and behold, - I was killin' it on the Russian squats, as my daughter would say.

So before you throw in the towel and decide your balance will never get better, make sure you have balanced strength and well as overall balance. And if you want expert guidance to improve your balance, consider signing up for our balance classes, which will be starting soon.

Click on the Video for a Component of Balance

Getting overheated while working out can really ruin your day, maybe your life. That sounds dramatic, but it's something to think about when temperatures climb.

How do you know when you're getting overheated?

Overheating - or thermal strain - feels exhausting. You may be going your usual pace or even slower than normal but you have some or all of these symptoms:

• Cool, moist skin with goose bumps
• Heavy sweating
• Feeling Faint
• Dizziness
• Headache
• Weak, rapid pulse
• Muscle cramps
• Nausea
• Headache
• You feel like you are working harder than expected

If you experience any of these symptoms, especially together, you should stop exercising, move to the shade, and get into a cool bath or hose off with cool water to lower your core temperature. If symptoms persist, seek medical attention.

Tolerating heat better comes from being able to dissipate heat efficiently - sweating more and sooner during exercise. While fit people tend to sweat more, they lose fewer electrolytes. As sweat evaporates, you maintain a better core temperature. We are lucky in Colorado, because our dry climate allows evaporation and thus cooling to occur more easily. 

Avoiding heat exhaustion is possible; we can all acclimate to warm weather exercise over time, so working out in the spring, as temperatures gradually rise, is smart. And if you already exercise regularly, you're ahead of the game, because you have a better tolerance for the heat if you're physically fit.