Stepping‌ ‌Over‌ ‌Obstacles‌ ‌and‌ ‌physical‌ ‌therapy‌ ‌

Stepping over obstacles is one of the most important parts of gait balance exercises and gait balance exercises are incomplete without it.

It is one of the effective ways to improve and feature the movements that occur in our legs while walking. It is essential to perform stepping exercises on obstacles  repeatedly because it will force you to flex your hips up high and bend your knees when walking

Obstacle Gait Training

This is how to perform this exercise

• Put 5 to 6 small obstacles in a straight row each  15 inches apart. It can be anything such as it can be rolled up towel small stack of books etc
• Your face must be towards the obstacle and step over an obstacle with one foot
• Place your other uninvolved foot next to your first foot
• Repeat this process with one foot and then turn around and step over the obstacle leading your other foot first
• When this process becomes easy step over fastly on the obstacle and step on all the obstacles in the row but make sure your knee is lifted high and foot and ankle is towards your buttocks when taking a step
• Repeat this process 10 times
  Consult your therapist

Side-Stepping Gait Exercises

Once the process of obstacle stepping becomes easy for you then you can try stepping over sideways this alteration to your normal gate can help you move in different directions such as in right or left direction while keeping the face forward

Follow these steps to perform side-stepping gait exercises

• Stand with an obstacle to your side
• Step one foot sideways over the first circle and make sure to raise your knee appropriately 
• When you place your foot down on the other side of the obstacle make sure you leave enough room for your second foot to land over there
• Lift your second foot by keeping your knee-high and place your second foot next to your first foot
• Repeat this with all the obstacles
• As the obstacle stepping requires you to take big steps with your knee-high take your time to stand on one leg as you step forward. This can help you to improve your gait but it can also cause instability so make sure that you are safe while performing this exercise someone is standing near you to assist you like your physical therapist or you have a chair or any object near to you which you can grab in case of instability

This is a very essential exercise for balancing gate due to lower extremity dysfunction make sure your physical therapist is involved in these exercises in your exercise program
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