Balance test: How far can you reach?

Doctors perform balance assessments to evaluate a person’s overall health and functional ability. Balance tests are important for diagnosing vestibular or neurological issues and assessing a person’s risk of falling. Balance tests are also fun to do on your own because when you ace them, it makes you feel strong and capable.

Functional Reach Test (FRT) is a quick, dynamic test used to measure balance and predict falls in older adults. It measures how stable you are when reaching forward and whether you can maintain balance during a functional task.

In this video, the FRT is slightly modified to enable you to perform this test on your own, without a second person to measure your reaching distance.

How to interpret the test:

• If you can reach forward for 10” (25 cm) without shifting the weight to your hand, you have a low risk of falling.
• If you can only reach 6” (15 cm), your risk of falling is 2x greater than normal.
• If you can reach less than 6” (15 cm), your risk of falling is 4x greater.

Here are the average norms for FRT based on age and gender:

This is an easy and fun test to do with your older students because most folks will be able to do it at the initial distance, which gives them confidence and a sense of accomplishment. You can repeat the movement several times, alternating the reaching hand and from different distances. It can be used not only as balance-testing but also as a balance-training move.

For more balance tests, interesting facts about balance, and balance-training yoga practices, check out our new yoga series, Find Your Equilibrium: Yoga for Balance Training. In this yoga series, we combine Western knowledge of kinesiology with yogic methodology to train our sense of equilibrium, strengthen the body, build integration between different body parts, and develop spatial orientation.

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