The Human being is fascinating. Think of yourself walking on a rocky beach. Don’t you find it difficult to balance and keep walking without falling? You might even think: I’m going to kill my self !! The reason of why you are not falling has to do with a new concept with a weird name:

Proprioception.

In simple words, Proprioception refers to the mental body awareness on how your mind-body analyzes the external and internal factors surrounding you, in other words your brain will be asking what’s going on inside and outside of you?

In more technical words, this mental body awareness refers on how your motor system reads and analyses what external and internal factors are affecting your body. Many doctors are referring to it as our 6th sense!

In our example, externally is when we are walking in rocky surface where our seventh sense is telling us:

Be careful this is not like walking on the streets. At the same time our sensory system needs to give information to our muscle-skeletal system about how internally we need to balance and the importance of positioning the joints in a specific manner. That is exact what is preventing you from falling and injuring yourself.

My training system wants to consider Proprioception as one of the core parts of the program. There has been extensive research in the benefits of proprioception and how different fitness equipment might help to increase your balance and your mental-body awareness.

EXERCISE: Walking on the beach is a fantastic exercise that will help your soft tissues to get stronger and resilient. Just walk 10 minutes in the morning 4 times a week.

For those who are advanced you might want to look into walking next to the water,Why?

The water will add resistance so your soft tissues will be forced to get stronger as the time you walk. Many professional athletes do their preseason using these principles.

Want to try an exercise at home? Get an old pillow and start walking on it. (3 sets of 20 repetitions)