‘I could do that with my eyes closed!’ you cry. Apply that to exercise and you just might be able to.
Proprioception is your brain’s knowledge about your body’s position. Close your eyes and bend your arm. Even though you can’t see your arm, your brain gets information from the muscles and tendons about its position.
Basically, the signals about your joint position get sent from the muscles and tendons of your body to your spine and are then sent back to create a correction. Stand on one leg and note the ‘shakes’ at your ankle. If these corrections aren’t made, you fall over. Falling over is bad, hence the signal going through your spine as a reflex, rather than having to travel all the way to your brain (which takes longer).
Complex movements require balance (the ability to keep your centre of gravity inside your base of support), accuracy and coordination (the ability to make an object or your body go where you want it to). These factors can be trained.
Balance is dependant on vision, proprioception and vestibular feedback (from your inner ear). If we remove one from the system, the others have to work harder to compensate. Just like a visually impaired person develops a heightened awareness of sounds, tastes, smells and touch. In this way, we can train our balance, accuracy and coordination.
So next time you train complex, multi-joint movements like squats, deadlifts and Olympic Lifts (clean and jerk and snatch), try doing them with your eyes closed. By doing this you will train the internal feedback systems to create more efficient and effective movement.
