Philosophers and scientists, including Plato, Darwin, Engels, Lamarck, Huxley and Haeckel, have all considered bipedalism (standing upright) to be the foremost of human characteristics and they might be right!

Human bipedalism is dependent on our ability balance upright, on two legs without falling over. Balance is defined by (the infinite wisdom of) Wikipedia as “an ability to maintain the line of gravity (vertical line from centre of mass) of a body within the base of support with minimal postural sway”

Long before there were humans our ape like ancestors were able to stand, probably much like the gorillas and chimps do today. Environmental pressures working through evolution has created us humans who are the only descendant that has an upright posture.

There are many theories as to why primitive man / madam developed a bipedal standing position, however the overall outcome is that we now span the globe as one of the most successful animals on the planet despite being incompletely adapted for this standing position.

Early people survived and thrived despite several limitations with early adoption of an upright stance. The negatives of evolving to stand was that it made us slow, making it harder to escape predation and increasing the time pressures for foraging and fuc***g socialising. It also initially greatly increased the energy requirement of movement and because of a higher centre of gravity perched over a smaller base of support increased the difficulty of balance and risk of injury with falls.

Clearly the advantages must have outweighed the cost, else we wouldn’t be here. Our current understanding is as follows: our ancestors started living in small groups around the lakes and streams of Africa, as we increased our reliance / mastery of finding food in these shallow waters we spent more and more time standing on 2 legs, wading for food. This also meant that we were able to start using our arms for a different purpose, caring children, food and using tools.

Over the next few million years early pre-humans improved their ability to stand upright and reducing the energy requirements of walking and running. The grace of human walking can be described as based on harmonic cycles of anatomical pendulums which is unique in mammals, moreover neither dinosaurs nor ostriches or any other marsupial moving on their hind feet show an orthograde spine in locomotion. All these things have allowed humans to have remarkable balance with a very low energy cost of locomotion given our size.

In regard to balance, increasing our standing height while narrowing the base of support should describe an increasingly unstable system, surprisingly however is that our sway parameters can be compared to that of a cat! Despite significant differences in height, weight and base of support humans and cats (the friendly household kind, known for their borderline supernatural balance) have similar COP (centre of pressure) oscillations in the realm of 1-2 centimetres.

It can be argued however that at this stage modern humans are only partially adapted to a life spent standing and that currently out joints wear and break down faster than they should. Our low backs, hips and knees have suffered for the past 6 million years due to this incomplete adaption. Before you start climbing trees and walking on ledges It would be prudent to point out that while our COP area is similar to a cat, their lower centre of mass, lower total mass and their relative large base of support are much more likely to recover from a sudden perturbation. The energy requirement for humans to catch their balance is huge in comparison and results in much more frequent falls and injuries.

Falls and injuries are a good reason to consider standing balance but there is so much more that can be seen with a closer look. From trying to pick apart the component of balance (vestibular, visual & vestibular) to predicting falls risk to evaluating injuries from ankle sprains to concussions. Standing Balance is important. I will post an entire article relating to the importance of balance but hopefully you will have some ideas of its importance from the preceding text. We will also look at the different strategies used to maintain balance including ankle and hip strategies and the things that athletes can teach us about balance.

To start looking at standing balance the research looks at having a person comfortable standing with the feet inside the hips usually heels approximately 10-12 cm (3.9 – 4.7 inchs) apart with the toes facing forward to a maximum of 15 degrees external rotation at the hip. In this position you can then observe for symmetry, sway and comfort.

Here at Balance Concepts we also look at balance using a modified Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction in Balance (CTSIB-m). This involves looking at standing balance in multiple conditions including eyes open vs closed and on a hard surface vs compliant surface. This lets us look at a persons balance when one or more systems are compromised (removing vision or accuracy of foot movements)

In summary “balance can be defined as the ability to maintain the body’s centre of gravity over its base of support with minimal sway or maximal steadiness”. In this regard humans have evolved an impressive ability to balance on 2 legs that rivals the amount of sway in our 4-legged friends cats and dogs. We still have a ways to go and I imagine over the next few million years unassisted we would be even more adapted for upright standing. Many great philosophers and scientists have marvelled at our ability to stand and the process of human standing and movement is unique and remarkably energy efficient. It does carry a cost and that is that out centre of mass is higher above the ground and our base of support has reduced. This means that it takes more energy to catch out balance with perturbations, that we must make corrections to our balance sooner and when we fall are more likely to injure ourselves.