Chair Exercises to Restore Balance After 60

Balance is crucial to strengthen and preserve as you age.

Looking—and feeling—young majorly depends on the healthy habits you include in your lifestyle. One of the biggest components is regular exercise. But as you age, it’s important to know that building muscle strength isn’t the only priority to focus on. Of course, maintaining muscle is essential so you can seamlessly perform chores and activities. It takes muscle strength to lift bags when you go food shopping, carry your pup or grandkids, and even change your clothes. Another big challenge of aging is balance. Having solid stability is critical so you don’t trip or fall and sustain an injury. That’s where chair exercises come in clutch.

Seated workouts are a perfect choice for building and maintaining strength, flexibility, and endurance. A chair is a firm, convenient base to use. The best part? Your workout will be free of pressure on your ankles and knees.

We are here with five chair exercises physical therapists swear by to restore balance after 60, so all you need to do is weave them into your workout routine. They’ll help keep you flexible and ready to do everything you love to do safely and with ease.

“Balance is very important to maintain as one ages. The systems responsible for balance include vision, the vestibular system, and proprioception, which work together with the musculoskeletal system (i.e., strength) and coordination (neurological system) to ensure we don’t fall. These systems decline with age,” explains Dr. Caryn McAllister, owner of High Quality Home Therapy, who has 31 years of experience working with people of all ages and diagnoses to improve motor function. “However, people can preventively work on these systems and strengthen them all by challenging them daily. There’s an old saying—if you don’t use it you lose it. I typically tell people that if they don’t challenge themselves, they don’t improve, and if we aren’t moving forward, we are actually moving backward.”

Below, McAllister shares five sitting exercises that can help with overall balance.

Sit-to-Stand

“The transition between sitting and standing and standing and sitting involves weight shifting forward and weight-bearing on the limbs, which is essentially strengthening (think modified squats). If someone cannot achieve full standing due to safety or limitations, then simply lifting the buttocks off the chair and leaning forward can do the trick,” McAllister tells us.

She recommends doing this exercise slowly, as it takes more effort and motor control to perform it gradually and deliberately.

1. Begin seated at the front of a sturdy chair, feet under your knees.
2. Lean forward just a bit.
3. Try to stand up without using your knees, hands, or additional support.
4. Then, use control to slowly sit back down for a count of 3.

Seated Cross-Body Reaches

This exercise requires trunk strength—a crucial component of balance.

“Reaching across midline in various directions ensures the core is utilized. When walking, we don’t only move our legs—we swing our arms and activate our trunk muscles as we rotate our trunk a bit. People usually don’t think of all that goes into gait (walking), and it’s rather complex. Add weights to the reaching across midline to increase intensity,” McAllister says.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

1. Begin sitting tall in a sturdy chair, feet flat on the ground.
2. Reach one arm across your midline toward the opposite side while maintaining steady hips.
3. Let your torso naturally rotate as you reach, keeping your chest tall.
4. Use control to return to the center.
5. Alternate sides.

Seated Toe Taps

“This exercise is super easy but one that should be done often. People can play around with this and alternate right foot, left foot, and then do them together. Alternating is more functional, as when we walk, we alternate feet, but doing them together can get the movement in and take less time,” McAllister says.

1. Begin sitting tall with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent.
2. Keep your heels planted.
3. Pull your toes and the balls of your feet up toward your shins.
4. Lower your toes back down and gently tap the floor.
5. Continue to tap with control.

Ball Toss in Unsupported Sitting

“The ball should be tossed in various directions, encouraging reaching and change of positions (weight shifting) for the person to be sufficiently challenged. Unsupported sitting with perfect posture for 30 minutes or longer is quite challenging,” McAllister explains.

1. Begin sitting tall on a sturdy chair (without using the back support) with your feet flat on the floor.
2. Hold a lightweight object, such as a Pilates ball.
3. Then, gently toss the ball upward or to a partner.
4. Catch the ball while maintaining a tall posture.
5. Progress by tossing the ball side to side.
6. Return to a tall seated position after each catch.

Seated Leg Kicks With Ankle Weights

“This exercise requires excellent sitting posture in order to ensure the proper muscles are being activated properly. It works on the quadriceps, the group of four muscles on the thigh, concentrically to straighten and eccentrically (think lengthening) to bend,” McAllister points out.

1. Begin sitting tall toward the back of the chair, maintaining a tall posture.
2. Place ankle weights around your ankles.
3. Keep one foot planted on the ground.
4. Slowly kick the other leg forward by straightening that knee.
5. Hold for a moment while squeezing your quads.
6. Use control to slowly lower.
7. Alternate legs.

Alexa Mellardo