Exposure to trips and slips with increasing unpredictability while walking can improve balance recovery responses with minimum predictive gait alterations.

Even in the absence of most predictive gait alterations, balance recovery responses to trips and slips were improved through exposure to repeated unpredictable perturbations. A common predictive gait alteration to lean forward immediately before a slip was not useful when the perturbation location was unpredictable. Training balance recovery with unpredictable perturbations may be beneficial to fall avoidance in everyday life.