Proprioception and matters for skiers and gym goers alike. So what is preconception and why is it important for you? In layman’s terms, proprioception is your bodies awareness of itself in space (the exact definition is: the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.). Training this system is important for improved performance as well as injury prevention for most of your life. Although it can be a bit frustrating when first starting but can become very challenging and rewarding as time goes on. Before we talk about some exercises to improve your proprioception/balance, let’s do a quick test and see how it goes.
Make sure you have plenty of room around yourself to start with. Next, stand on a single leg with your dominant leg on the floor and your non dominant leg tucked up behind it. Find your center of balance, and now close your eyes and see how long you can stay on that leg. Odds are it isn’t as long or as easy as you would like it to be, now let’s try the exact same test on your non-dominant leg and see how it goes.
As far as things that you can do at the Ridge to improve your proprioception, we will stick to a simple 6-minute workout on the balance boards (located by physical therapy). Starting out on the square board with feet shoulder width and moving the board side to side under control touching each side lightly to the ground. Then switch to moving the board forward and back under control the same way. The third part of this workout is moving to a circular board and focusing on regular two leg balance without any movement. Each of these are performed for 1 minute and repeated twice with rest in-between.
Try these out and grab a personal trainer if you want to learn more.
About the Author: Jay Corti is an
ACSM Certified Personal Trainer at Ridge Athletic Clubs