What does it say about your health how long you can stand on one leg?

How long you can balance on one leg may be an important indicator of your health and how well you age, a new study has found.
Researchers have found that how long a person can stand on one leg is a better indicator of aging than changes in strength or gait.
Experts explain how balance relates to biological age and how to use a test to determine yours.

Of course yoga can be great low impact exercise to improve overall health. But it turns out that one pose can show off more than just your flexibility. How long you can stand on one leg may be an important indicator of your health and how well you age, according to a new study.

A small Mayo Clinic study published in PLOS One studied 40 healthy, independent people over 50 years of age, half of whom were under 65 years of age; the other half were aged 65 years or older. The researchers used the following tests to evaluate age-related decline as well as differences between sexes.

Grip Strength: A handheld device was used to measure upper body strength.
Knee Strength: Knee Extension Exercises Lower body strength is assessed.
Gait: Participants walked at their own pace along a designated path while a motion analysis system recorded their movements.
Balance: Participants stood on plates that measured balance in four different scenarios: on both legs with eyes open, with eyes closed, and on the dominant and non-dominant leg with eyes open. Participants could keep the leg they weren’t standing on where they wanted.

Of the four tests, researchers found that the time a person maintains balance while standing on one leg shows “the greatest rate of decline with age,” according to the Mayo Clinic. In other words, the results showed that the time a person could stand on both the dominant and non-dominant leg decreased significantly with age—and had a greater decline than gait and muscle strength.

Specifically, the researchers determined that the length of time a person could stand on one leg decreased by 2.2 seconds per decade on the non-dominant leg, while it decreased by 1.7 seconds per decade on the dominant leg. The researchers noted that these results held true for all genders.

“Balance This is an important measure because, in addition to muscle strength, it requires the participation of vision, the vestibular system (the sensory system of the inner ear that helps maintain balance), and the somatosensory system (the part of the nervous system that allows people to perceive sensations from the body, such as touch, pressure, pain, temperature and motion),” said Kenton Kaufman, Ph.D., senior author of the study and director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, in statement. “The changes in balance are noteworthy. If you have poor balance, you are at risk of falling whether you are moving or not. Falls are a serious health risk with serious consequences.”

The statement noted that leading cause of injury Among adults aged 65 years and older, unintentional falls occur, and among older adults, most falls result from loss of balance.

Bottom line

This study shows how balance can be used to measure age, but it is not the first study to do so. A June 2022 survey confirmed that the ability to maintain balance is associated with longer life, finding that those who were unable to stand on one leg for 10 second balance test were associated with an 84% increased risk of death over the next seven years.

The good news is that you can take steps to prevent this by using balance exercises. “For example, by standing on one leg, you can train to coordinate muscular and vestibular responses to maintain proper balance. If you can stand on one leg for 30 seconds, you are doing well,” Dr. Kaufman said in a Mayo Clinic statement.

“If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. If you use it, you support it,” Dr. Kaufman continued. “It’s easy to do. It doesn’t require any special equipment and you can do it every day.”