Centers for Athletic Performance

(Part III –Proprioceptive Training to Improve Performance while Reducing Injuries)

Proprioception (according to http://en.wikipedia.org ) comes from the Latin word proprius meaning “one’s own” and perception. Or one might say the ‘sense’ of the body’s position. There are the five senses you have always known about: sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing. And then you have proprioception or a sixth sense that is more internal than external. Proprioception is not to be confused with kinesthesia or kinesthetic sense. Kinesthetic sense is the ability to feel movements of the limbs and body, while proprioception is the ability to sense the specific position, location, orientation and movement of the body and its parts.

Please don’t confuse these two terms. There is more to proprioceptive training than “feeling movement”. To reach athletic potential, as well as reduce the risk of injury, one must try and “sense the movement” as it is happening, and better yet “anticipate the movement” before it happens. As a Star Wars fan would describe it, “It’s like using the Force!” In this sense proprioception is the final stage of A.M.P. Training © as it draws upon aspects of awareness and motor skill to reach potential.

There is an energy running through our body that senses everything from changes in pressure and temperature, to anticipating trajectory and planning the best movement for an upcoming task. Some call it Chi. Some, such as those who practice the Alexander Technique refer to it as “directing” or the “principle of primary control”.

“People who direct themselves visualize movement, and mentally guide the flow of using force through their body,” states one Alexander Technique site. “Rather than gunning the motor and muscling their way through an activity, people who direct use their mind to guide, or envision their own coordinated dynamic expansion while moving. By doing so, the body's reflexive coordination seems to spontaneously recover from habit to gracefully handle the action as if by itself.”

If you can reflexively handle spontaneous changes in chaotic movement (athletic events), through efficiently rehearsed movement patterning (Goal #4), this will free your mind to anticipate and calculate the best way to handle situations. Perfecting this during training will make you move much more gracefully (athletically), as the game seems to “slow down”. This in itself will dramatically reduce the risk of injury while increasing your performance.

As a friend of mine so humorously puts it, “This is not rocket surgery or brain science”. To improve proprioception, don’t try and put the athletes on sophisticated machines, or balance apparatuses that take them out of their element. They need to put their mind in the game, they need to see what is happening, visualize the potential outcome, and move accordingly. This needs to be done in training as well as on the field or court. Simple drill work that is done every day with a few adjustments can put the athlete in a position to understand how the situation will develop, and coordinate the physics with the physical.

Scott Moody
Founder and CEO
Centers for Athletic Performance, Inc (CAP)