Titan Sports Performance Center F.Y.I. - August 2006
Robb Bolton, ATC, CSCS
Director of Athletic Performance Jacques DeVore, CSCS/President
Here is another great article we thought you might find interesting and informative.
Proprioception - Taking a Balanced Approach to Sport
Article courtesy of Peak Performance Sports Research Newsletter
When it comes to sport performance, power, strength and endurance can only take you so far. Whether you’re a footballer dribbling the ball, a gymnast on the bars, or a rugby player diving for the line while fending off tackles, balance is absolutely critical for performance. John Shepherd takes a look at how balance and the mechanisms that lie behind this skill can be improved.
Balance in sport involves a complex interplay between numerous factors. A number of these are conscious – such as deciding to move a limb to prevent yourself falling at the same time as performing a skill eg a basketball shot – while many more are unconscious. The unconscious element involves the ‘use’ of in-built sensory mechanisms and programmed responses. This is known as ‘proprioception’.
Proprioception has been called the ‘sixth sense’ and is basically a mechanism (or, more accurately, a series of mechanisms) that keeps track and control of muscle tensions and movement in the body. Proprioception is achieved through muscles, ligaments and joint actions using messages that are continuously sent through the central nervous system.
Proprioceptors are basically ‘sensors’ that reside within muscles, joints and ligaments. These respond to pressure, stretch and tension and are key in initiating what is known as the‘stretch/reflex’.
Injury can reduce the effectiveness of an athlete’s proprioception, something that the athlete and coach may not be fully aware of even when rehabilitation seems complete.
Specificity and Proprioception
The rule of training specificity states that the greatest sports improvement gains will be derived from the most sport specific exercises for that sport. Thus for example, a sprint athlete will get greater returns from plyometric training, in comparison with weight training. However, it is possible that even these specific training means may not fully develop proprioceptive ability.
Mark Alexander, writing for PP’s sister publication Sports Injury Bulletin, notes that a focus on speed and power exercises, with their emphasis on fast-twitch muscle fibre may in fact disrupt proprioceptive ability (3). He indicates that fasttwitch muscle fibre is less adept at monitoring and controlling muscle tension when compared with slow-twitch fibre because of the quicker speed of neural impulses being sent and interpreted through muscle spindles and spinal motor neurons.
Thus it is argued that balance type exercises need to be performed at slower paces to optimally enhance proprioception. These allow postural stabiliser muscles, with their greater predominance of slow-twitch muscle fibre, to supply enhanced movement control. An example of a stabilising muscle is the soleus muscle of the lower leg, while the other major calf muscle (the gastrocnemius) is the ‘fast-twitch fibre rich prime mover’.
Balance type drills are seen to improve not only proprioception, reducing potential injury, but also the ability of an athlete to express power. To explain this, think of a high jumper planting off their curved approach to leap dynamically skyward. The forces going through the athlete’s prime mover leg muscles need to be controlled by the stabilising muscles. The more effective these muscles are, the more effective the power output will be from the prime movers. This is akin to the fine-tuning of a race car’s suspension (which can be equated to the stabilising muscles), where small tweaks can greatly enhance the geometry of the car and therefore the speed produced by its prime mover - the engine.
To counter the thoughts of those who might still advocate faster movements for the development of proprioception, it is necessary to differentiate between proprioception and kinaesthetic awareness. Kinaesthetic awareness is about the ability of an athlete to perform a dynamic sporting skill, perhaps from an unstable position, and time in order to affect a sports skill. This differs from the more automatic nature of proprioception responses. -
