Close up image of a caretaker helping older woman walk

Older adults can reduce their risk of falling by playing catch with a weighted medicine ball, according to recently published findings.

Playing catch improves a person’s anticipatory postural control, which people lose as they age, stated principal investigator Alexander Aruin, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Anticipatory control, Aruin explained, is what happens “when … you see someone about to bump into you, you brace yourself.” It works in conjunction with corrective control — what the body does after the bump occurs — to keep people from falling.

Aruin and his colleagues measured the activity of leg and trunk muscles in a group of seniors who played catch, and saw improvements. The seniors also showed that the improvements in anticipatory control would hold even for activities outside of playing catch. More long-term studies are planned.

Another benefit of playing catch is that nearly all the study participants enjoyed it, Aruin noted in a press release issued Friday.

Complete findings are available online and are forthcoming in the journals Electromyography and Kinesiology and Experimental Brain Research.