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Just what is proprioception?
Without proprioception, you couldn’t take your next step without consciously thinking about how you will make it happen.
You wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the grass on the soles of your feet and a cement path.
And you couldn’t walk a straight line.
Proprioception is your brains ability to take information from vestibular organs in the inner ear, visual information from the eyes and receptors on our muscles, skin and joints to sense movement, location and action.
It is a sense that we assume. We take it for granted. In fact, most of us are not even aware that we have it!
If you are an athlete having good proprioception will enhance your performance.
Good proprioception also helps us to maintain posture, exercise, balance and stabilise our bodies to avoid injury and falls, especially as we get older.
And, importantly it is a sense that we must develop for the health of our brains, to focus, and even our speech.
What to know more? Let’s explore how you can better understand, test and maintain good proprioception.
Proprioception is also called kinesthesia.
It is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position.
This muscle sense is found in most animals, and although plants do not have neurons, amazingly, some plants also have a form of proprioception.
In humans, the transfer of information takes place through proprioceptors, mechanosensory neurons, located within skin, muscles, tendons, and joints.
Signals are transmitted to the central nervous system, where they are integrated with the information from other sensory systems, like the visual system (eyes) and the vestibular system (inner ear), to allow you to experience the full understanding of your body’s position, movement, and physical energy force.
How the body senses proprioception:
Many of the day-to-day activities and tasks we execute require us to have trained our proprioception.
Think about touch typing, driving a car, an artist being able to put the paint onto the canvas, hiking through the mountains and not needing to watch the ground as you navigate the terrain, or even just walking down the street and stepping up the curb.
This is all because of proprioception.
We can train and sharpen our proprioceptive sense by practising different disciplines, including Pilates, yoga, Chi Gung and even juggling!
It has been proven that by regular maintenance, we can hone this sense to maintain and improve our reaction time, spacial location, the efficiency of our movement and our balance, especially as we age.
The Romberg’s test is often used to assess balance. Stand with your feet together and your eyes closed without support for 30 seconds. If you lose balance and falls, it is an indicator for impaired proprioception.
If you are concerned that you may have a proprioception disorder you should contact your doctor, physical therapist or healthcare worker to have an assessment.
Reasons you may be concerned could include:
The practitioner will discuss your medical history and may perform one of the following tests:
Following this, they may ask for more diagnostic tests to rule out underlying medical conditions or injury.
Join Director Natalia Laing for a 6 minute proprioception practice session!
Impaired proprioception can be due to:
Injury:
More serious conditions include:
Temporary issues that can include:
They can be categorised in the following:
Impairment can be permanent, long term or temporary.
Get monthly updates with wellness tips, holistic health insights, and expert guidance. Start your journey to a better well-being and healing today!
Join our private members Pilates & Wellbeing online program today!
Just what is proprioception?
Without proprioception, you couldn’t take your next step without consciously thinking about how you will make it happen.
You wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the grass on the soles of your feet and a cement path.
And you couldn’t walk a straight line.
Proprioception is your brains ability to take information from vestibular organs in the inner ear, visual information from the eyes and receptors on our muscles, skin and joints to sense movement, location and action.
It is a sense that we assume. We take it for granted. In fact, most of us are not even aware that we have it!
If you are an athlete having good proprioception will enhance your performance.
Good proprioception also helps us to maintain posture, exercise, balance and stabilise our bodies to avoid injury and falls, especially as we get older.
And, importantly it is a sense that we must develop for the health of our brains, to focus, and even our speech.
What to know more? Let’s explore how you can better understand, test and maintain good proprioception.
Proprioception is also called kinesthesia.
It is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position.
This muscle sense is found in most animals, and although plants do not have neurons, amazingly, some plants also have a form of proprioception.
In humans, the transfer of information takes place through proprioceptors, mechanosensory neurons, located within skin, muscles, tendons, and joints.
Signals are transmitted to the central nervous system, where they are integrated with the information from other sensory systems, like the visual system (eyes) and the vestibular system (inner ear), to allow you to experience the full understanding of your body’s position, movement, and physical energy force.
How the body senses proprioception:
Many of the day-to-day activities and tasks we execute require us to have trained our proprioception.
Think about touch typing, driving a car, an artist being able to put the paint onto the canvas, hiking through the mountains and not needing to watch the ground as you navigate the terrain, or even just walking down the street and stepping up the curb.
This is all because of proprioception.
We can train and sharpen our proprioceptive sense by practising different disciplines, including Pilates, yoga, Chi Gung and even juggling!
It has been proven that by regular maintenance, we can hone this sense to maintain and improve our reaction time, spacial location, the efficiency of our movement and our balance, especially as we age.
The Romberg’s test is often used to assess balance. Stand with your feet together and your eyes closed without support for 30 seconds. If you lose balance and falls, it is an indicator for impaired proprioception.
If you are concerned that you may have a proprioception disorder you should contact your doctor, physical therapist or healthcare worker to have an assessment.
Reasons you may be concerned could include:
The practitioner will discuss your medical history and may perform one of the following tests:
Following this, they may ask for more diagnostic tests to rule out underlying medical conditions or injury.
Join Director Natalia Laing for a 6 minute proprioception practice session!
Impaired proprioception can be due to:
Injury:
More serious conditions include:
Temporary issues that can include:
They can be categorised in the following:
Impairment can be permanent, long term or temporary.
Get monthly updates with wellness tips, holistic health insights, and expert guidance. Start your journey to a better well-being and healing today!
Get monthly updates with wellness tips, holistic health insights, and expert guidance. Start your journey to a better well-being and healing today!
