Standing on one leg may predict early death.

chillidoggy

I'll have a go at this when I can manage to get off this damned sofa.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10795230/Standing-on-one-leg-may-predict-which-53-year-olds-at-risk-of-early-death.html

Fazer

standing on 1 leg at the edge of a cliff can lead to early death

not_the_dj

Is that why you never see geriatric flamingoes?

JAYJO

well my balance has always been crap, ive just tried it and cant do it for 10 secs because i end up hopping around my room like a tit. soon to be dead one.

boogieman

Mrs B to be and I just tried it. No problems with the standing up from a chair exercise but both of us only managed 4-5 seconds of balancing on one leg. Surprising how much easier it is to do with your eyes open, presumably harder with closed eyes because it has to do with inner ear thingummies?

octatonic

24 seconds- I am a standing-on-one-leg-mother-fucking-MACHINE!

I am the Henry Rollins of standing on one leg.

RAWR!

http://kungfubrew.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Henry-Rollins-32.jpg

(Am I the only one who thinks Hank needs more fibre in his diet?)

Kerpunk

I don't think it takes a doctor to say somethings wrong if you can't stand on one leg for 10 seconds. Fuck getting out of a chair 37 times in a minute though.

mike_l

octatonic said:

24 seconds- I am a standing-on-one-leg-mother-fucking-MACHINE!

I am the Henry Rollins of standing on one leg.

RAWR!

http://kungfubrew.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Henry-Rollins-32.jpg

(Am I the only one who thinks Hank needs more fibre in his diet?)

I think Drew might have left a beer bottle on his chair.

octatonic

From a distance Drew does look a bit like Chris Haskett (guitarist on the right).

richardhomer

How did they evaluate this? By asking someone who died at 54 how long they could stand on one leg a year earlier? Bizarre....

mike_l

octatonic said:

From a distance Drew does look a bit like Chris Haskett (guitarist on the right).

Drew has a better beard.

Grunfeld

Balance is one of those things that typically diminishes with ageing.  It can be insidious, subtle.  I didn't notice anything in everyday life but I had a student who asked about balance assessment and I demonstrated... and fell over.  Stuff that.

So.... got on the case.  Exercise time for the laziest physio in Essex....

Every morning, brush teeth on one leg; every evening, other leg.

Started off using a bit of upper limb support... after three months able to do either leg, no support, eyes closed.


Have a practice tonight.  Brush your teeth standing on one leg with your eyes closed.




 

Sambostar

Yeah, I would hazard a guess that the forty stone heifer I saw on the motorized cart in Walmart, the last time I was over, the one with her arse a good foot and a half off each side of the seat and hanging a good foot down either side wouldn't be able to stand straight at all for two seconds with her eyes wide open.  Does this pass as science?

Sambostar

Now stand on one leg, on a 21 foot high, 5' x 2' Boss Scaffold platform, without any safety rails, with a 15' pole saw balanced with a 4 inch trunk, 10 foot tall conifer top attached to it for two minutes and repeat for ten hours.

What is the eyes closed thing about?  What if your ears are fecked?  You don't stand a chance.

Sambostar

Wear stilettos and a diving helmet and your chances of dying in the next 13 years increase significantly.

ICBM

Grunfeld said:

Have a practice tonight.  Brush your teeth standing on one leg with your eyes closed.
 

I would have thought that falling on your face with your eyes closed and a toothbrush sticking out of your mouth could be highly disadvantageous to a long life, but maybe I'm missing something...

Grunfeld

Sambostar said:

What is the eyes closed thing about?  What if your ears are fecked?  You don't stand a chance.

It has nothing to do with your ears (all other things being equal).  By getting rid of visual input you're focusing on proprioception, i.e. your ability to know where your body is and correcting challenges to balance purely through that proprioceptive sense.  The way that we compensate poor balance with information from our eyes prevents us noticing how balance may becoming impaired.  So it's a nice little test of the situation.  Formal testing would look at more but this is a quick and dirty test that nearly anyone can do.

Sambostar

Yeah....but if your ears are fecked your balance is lost.

Grunfeld

Sambostar said:

Yeah....but if your ears are fecked your balance is lost.

Many things can impair your balance.

The thing to do is find out if your balance is impaired and then see about the cause(s).  And then you might want to reverse it if  possible.

But even then, a surprising proportion of people simply cannot be arsed.

Sambostar

So...If you are 6' 5" and stand up abruptly from squatting with your head tilted frontwards, does it mean you will be outlived by someone who is 4' 11" ?  Goodbye then I think I am going to die soon.

Sambostar

Do you have to do this blind one leg thing bare foot?  Because in my work boots I can go 30 seconds longer.  What if you have narrow feet?  I don't have narrow feet.  It is interesting this eyes closed thing though eh.  With my eyes open I can go 5 minutes plus on each leg, probably longer until I'm knackered, with the other leg held to my chest.  With my eyes closed my foot starts rocking immediately and I start hopping about within one to three seconds.  Oh well goodbye then.  What if you are 6' 5", a small arse, are lean but have a huge head?  Does that count as a disability, like a handicap or something that can buy you extra seconds?  When I float in the sea, I float just under the surface and my head sinks.  I think a lot depends on body mass distribution too.  After all, remember those weebles?  They were impossible to knock over eh.  Where as Peter Crouch is an exception in football, although he doesn't have a huge head.