Objectives: Ageing is associated with a number of physiologic and functional declines that can increase disability, frailty, and falls in the elderly. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to study and compare the effect of balance, strength, and combined trainings on the balance (overall, anterior-posterior, medial-lateral) of the elderly women.

Methods & Materials: Twenty-four older female adults (without history of any injuries in their lower limbs) were participated voluntarily in this study and randomly assigned into 3 groups: balance (n=8), strength (n=8) and combined (n=8). A 6-week exercise program was performed at Shahid Beheshti University. The program was performed 3 days per week. Before and after implementation of exercise program, the balance status of the subjects was measured by Biodex stability system. The data were analyzed using 2-way analysis of variance (group×time ANOVA) with repeated measures on time, paired–sample t-test, 1–way ANOVA, and Bonferroni post–hoc test (P≤0.005).

Results: At the end of training programs, significant improvements were observed between the balance and combined groups with regard to the indexes of overall, anterior–posterior, and medial–lateral balance. Also, the strength group showed a significant growth in the indexes of anterior-posterior and medial-lateral compared to the beginning of the study. There was a significant difference between the balance (P=0.0001) and combined groups (P=0.001) with the strength group with regard to the index of overall balance. Also, there was a significant difference between balance group (P=0.0001) and the combined group (P=0.0001) regarding the anterior-posterior balance. But there were no significant differences between groups with regard to the medial-lateral balance.

Conclusion: The study showed that perturbation–based balance training and combined training had the better effects compared to the strength training.