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bike accident

A Bike Fall and Bonnie’s Residual Balance Impacts

Injuries and Their Impact on Balance

Life has no shortage of ways to throw off your balance — whether it’s a car accident, a trip and fall, being knocked over, or slipping on something unexpected. The list is endless.

It’s easy to blame poor balance for getting you into trouble. But more often than not, the reverse is true — we find that an injury disrupts your balance reactions, setting you up for future challenges.

Bonnie’s Cycling Accident, Yikes!

Five years ago, Bonnie experienced a serious cycling accident. She wiped out on the road, lost consciousness, and woke up in the hospital with a fractured clavicle and a concussion.

Despite the severity of the crash, Bonnie made an impressive recovery. She’s back on her bike, riding at a high level with her pack. Her hope for the session was to tune-up her movements up to make sure she’s good for next season!

What did we find with Bonnie?

Many cyclists who experience a fall have lasting pains. Bonnie was already ahead of the game since she hadn’t noticed any major issues. However, she was suspicious that the clavicle fracture might have thrown something off.

Thankfully, she had no additional movement disrupters in her past — no surgeries, no other injuries, and no early developmental challenges that might have affected her movement patterns. This made it easier to ascertain what the bike fall did to her movement flows and reactions.

During our Bridging® assessment, we uncovered a key issue: Bonnie had trouble stabilizing her sideways balance. This is a critical skill for cyclists, especially when turning, which often requires shifting weight laterally.

Her fellow cyclists often spoke of “leaning” into curves, but for Bonnie, that movement didn’t come naturally. Now she understood why: her body wasn’t inherently controlling the lean to one side.


We Also Discovered …

While Bonnie was primarily focused on the lingering effects of her clavicle fracture, our assessment revealed additional trauma to her leg and hip from the impact of her fall.

This trauma had created subtle “glitches” in how her leg and core worked together, disrupting the flow of her movement.

By the end of the session, Bonnie’s balance had improved significantly. She’s ready to hit the road with confidence in 2025!

Watch the video to see the full process and how her balance was restored.


The hidden remnants of a fall

When you hit the ground, the ground hits back — hard!

At The Bridging® Institute, we’ve often found that the less obvious aspects of an injury can be just as significant as the broken bones, severe twists, or deep bruises. These hidden factors often explain why full recovery remains elusive, even after the initial healing process.

One key reason? Injuries can disrupt your balance reactions, and unfortunately, these reactions don’t naturally reset on their own. So why does this happen? Let’s dive deeper to understand.

Key Points About Balance

To better understand more about balance here are some basics concepts:

Muscles work in 3D. Your body moves in different dimensions — sideways, turning, forward/backward, and bending/arching. Each direction needs control.

Moving is different than reacting. Movement is planned and can be practiced. Reacting is just that, reacting. It is unplanned, and good reactions can be the difference between falling and ‘catching’ ourselves.

Reactions can be impaired by life events. The same events that disrupt muscle coordination are usually at fault for taking balance reactions offline. The usual suspects are injuries, accidents, surgeries, and immobilized arms or legs. Each interrupts the finely tuned reactions developed years ago.

Balance reactions rarely are tested. The primary balance tests used for medical and exercise evaluations involve static and dynamic balance. Poor reactions can be a blind spot that leaves you vulnerable and related stress can contribute to your pain.

Bridging®: Recover and Reclaim Your Balance

Many of our clients seek us out to address persistent pain or movement challenges. Through our Bridging® assessment, we go beyond the symptoms to uncover the root cause: the micromovement glitches that often stem from past injuries or even long-forgotten falls.

Our reset process restores muscle coordination by reconnecting your body’s natural movement patterns based on early developmental relationships. Once reset, we reassess your balance reactions to ensure you’re moving with confidence and ease.