Conscious Proprioception.
(PRO-pree-oh-SEPt-shun)
Awareness of your sense of position, motion and balance.
Proprioception - The basics.
(PRO-pree-oh-SEPt-shun)
Throughout the body, various 'sensors' produce sensory feedback (information) that is sent to the brain via our nerves.
The brain processes the feedback about position and movement for the sense known as proprioception.
Proprioception:
"The ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium."
Your sense of proprioception will be running in the background, as your body subconsciously makes adjustments in order to maintain a 'functional posture'.
Conscious proprioception.
Conscious proprioception is when we are aware of this proprioceptive sensory feedback our body and brain have for us. When we can consciously sense/feel:
- The position of the parts of our body.
- The motion of our body, and where we should be able to move (rom).
- Our equilibrium - whether the body is balanced or not.
- Feeling the relative position, motion and equilibrium of each of your main muscles of movement.
- Awareness of the relative positioning of your midline anatomy.
- Feeling your state of alignment and balance.
- Feeling where your natural range of movement should be able to take you.
- Being able to see/sense/visualise your presence in space.
- The connection between body and mind.
Your Base-Line and conscious proprioception.
Base-Line muslces.
- To describe the position of something you need a reference.
- To describe a motion (a change in position) a reference is also needed.
- To be in equilibrium means to be balanced, but balanced around what?
→ The position of the rest of your body is relative to your Base-Line.
→ All movement should originate from your Base-Line.
→ Balance either side of our midline anatomy when creating the median plane.
Connecting body and mind.
"The ability to sense the position of your body in space and being aware of where you should be able to move."
According to Base-Line theory:
We have a 3-D map of the body stored in our brain. This map is based on our body when it has a full range of movement - our potential rather than what we can currently achieve.
Proprioceptive sensory information from the whole body should be applied to this map, giving us a mental image of the layout and relative positions of our head and limbs extending from our Base-Line.
Starting from nothing to seeing the full map: My body-mind connection.
Sensory feedback from the pelvic floor provides the Base starting point for reading the map accurately.
The anatomical structures on the median plane (our midline) provide the guides to orientate the map in the right direction, beginning with the linea alba. Sensory feedback from the rectus abdominis muscles that lie either side of the linea alba provide the sensory information about the position of our central Line.
We can experience the whole map when there are no physical restrictions to block the proprioceptive signals on the way to the brain.
The map in the brain can become skewed. The map maintains its approximate shape but becomes misaligned on the body. If the map is misaligned, motor signals (commands from the brain to muscles) go to the wrong place, causing imbalances and increased stress on our muscular system as other areas of muscle rather than the main muscles of movement are activated as we move.
What happens if I don't use my main muscles of movement correctly?
Sense the sparkles. Feel your alignment.