How Balance Exercises Helped Me Stop Shuffling When I Walk

My daughter Renee noticed it before I did. We were walking through the parking lot at the grocery store in Sarasota, a trip I'd done a hundred times, and she said quietly, "Mom, you're shuffling." I told her I was just tired. She didn't push it, but I saw the look on her face. It was the same look she'd had after my first fall, when I broke my wrist on the back porch steps in 2021.

I was 71 at the time and I'd already been through physical therapy twice. Once after the wrist, once after I broke my leg the following spring slipping on wet tile in my kitchen. By the time Renee said something, I'd lost 48 pounds, I'd done every exercise my PT gave me, and I thought I was doing well. But the shuffle had crept back in, and I hadn't even noticed.

My PT, a woman named Carla who'd worked with me through both recoveries, explained it plainly when I brought it up at my next appointment. The shuffle gait, she said, is what happens when the muscles responsible for lifting your foot and shifting your weight stop trusting each other. Your brain, trying to protect you, tells your feet to stay close to the ground. It feels safer. And in the short term it is, sort of. But in the long term, shuffling makes you more likely to trip over a threshold, a curb, a wrinkle in a rug. It's not a sign that you're getting worse, she said. It's a warning that your balance system needs work.

Carla had been suggesting I try a balance trainer for months. I'd been skeptical. I pictured those big inflatable balls you see in gym classes, something young people bounce around on. She brought out a BOSU Balance Trainer and put it flat-side down in the corner of her office. She stepped on it herself, a woman probably fifteen years younger than me, and it wobbled under her too. "This isn't about being athletic," she said. "It's about teaching your body to recover." She put it flat-side up, which is the more stable position for beginners, had me put both feet on it while I held the wall, and we just stood there. For about forty-five seconds my legs worked harder than they had in months.

Carla said the shuffle gait is your brain trying to protect you. But in the long run, it makes a fall more likely, not less. That was the sentence that made me finally take this seriously.

I ordered the BOSU Balance Trainer that week. It took me about twenty minutes to inflate with the hand pump that comes with it, which is about fifteen minutes longer than I expected. But I only had to do it once.

I started with ten minutes a day, flat-side up, both feet on, one hand on the kitchen counter. The first week I felt ridiculous. My ankles shook. But by the second week I could get through five minutes without gripping the counter. By week six, Carla had me doing single-leg stands on the flat side. Not for long, twenty seconds at a time, but I was doing them.

Around the two-month mark, Renee came to visit. We walked to a coffee shop about three blocks from my condo, a walk I'd been avoiding because the sidewalk is uneven in two spots near the end of the block. Halfway there she grabbed my arm and said, "Mom, you're walking differently." I asked her what she meant. She said my feet were actually lifting. I didn't have a good answer for that. I just kept walking.

I'm not going to tell you the BOSU fixed everything. I still have bad mornings, especially when I've slept poorly. I still hold the railing on the stairs every single time. I still use my full review of the BOSU to explain to people that this is a tool, not a cure. And if you're reading this and thinking about fall risk, there's real detail in the 10 reasons balance training reduces fall risk piece that goes deeper than I can here. But the shuffle? That one has gotten substantially better. Carla noticed it at my last visit without me saying anything. She just said, "Your gait looks steadier. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."

I'm doing it.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you're reading this because someone you love is shuffling, or because you caught yourself doing it and it scared you, here's what I'd say. Don't wait for a fall to take it seriously. The shuffle is a signal, not a sentence. Your balance system is trainable at any age, and the earlier you start, the more margin you give yourself. A balance trainer like the BOSU isn't a miracle and I won't pretend otherwise. You have to use it consistently, you have to start carefully, and ideally you work with a PT who can guide the exercises. But as a tool that sits in your living room and asks you to stand on it for ten minutes a day, it's about as low-barrier as this kind of training gets. Renee has stopped giving me that look in parking lots. That's worth something.