Talk to your body

Have you come across the word proprioception? I thought I heard wrong, too, the first time, until my gym coach explained its importance in strength training. Google defines it as “your body’s ‘sixth sense’ that tracks its own position, movement and effort in space.” Why is it important? It allows us to control our movements – how to hold a glass gingerly instead of crushing it and allows us to pick up a heavy box using the right amount of muscle tension.

During our hybrid team relay which I gamely joined, my coach and my physical therapist (PT) reminded me to remind my brain about the weight of a 20-kilo medicine ball (read about why it is called that!) before attempting to lift it onto the top of a box raised about a meter high. That is called proprioception. Your brain tells you that it is quite heavy after trying to lift it a few inches off the floor. It is the same with deadlifts. You do not shock your brain into lifting something more than your body weight. You tell the brain – here, it is heavier than my body, feel it. After you warm up with a lighter weight, say 15 kilos, your brain gets conditioned to “recruit” all the strength to carry that again and more.

It is so interesting how the brain and muscles work together, each muscle group being called by the brain to do some kind of work. How does it work? Specialized nerve receptors located in your muscles, tendons and joints constantly monitor how much your muscles are being stretched and how your joints are being bent. Yes, it is not magic but it is science.

When the brain struggles to process these sensory signals it could be troublesome as we can get clumsy or knock things over. This is why exercise is so important – not just for losing weight but to train our bodies to react in a certain way. As we age and we do not practice different sets of movements, our brain has a more difficult time acting properly.

My first gym coach, a young magna cum laude sports scientist, taught me about neural priming. Not to sound geeky or be impressive, the term simply means activating your nervous system before a physical task. It readies your brain and body for action you may not have done in a long time. Things like throwing a dead ball as strong as you can on the floor recruits all your muscles to bridge the connection between brain and body. Call it “how to hack your brain” into moving faster and having quicker reaction times when it is important. Like catching yourself before a fall, especially for seniors. We also slam the ball sideways, using your rotators, so you can catch yourself when trapped in situations where you need to twist that torso, for whatever reason. Yes, it is a little geeky to understand but it helps to prevent accidents in the future.  Many people over 65 fall and get injured because their brains are no longer as elastic as they used to be.

I love understanding this brain-muscle conversation every time my coach tells me to do a different “accessory” exercise. I ask why, all the time. And better than just Google it, I experience how our body responds to stimuli and how our brains must cooperate to allow us to train better. My new coach, a very experienced athlete, moves lightly even if he is jumping to show me a “neural” exercise. His 80-kilo frame seems feather-like as he moves to do broad jumps or to show me how to prime myself for a compound lift (e.g. deadlift or squat).

When I signed up for the gym all I wanted was to improve my balance and maybe tone my physique, if at all possible. Now, I am enthused by the body and how it adapts even as we age. I am surprised how we condition our bones to grow because the brain perceives it is carrying more loads. And our muscles grow – yes they do – even as we approach our golden years. It does take longer to build muscle, but it still grows. We may not get taller, but we get leaner and stronger. My weight has stayed the same for one whole year, but some fat decided to turn to muscle. And maybe I gained a little bone mass, too.

It is never too late to build muscle even in your 70s. So can you imagine if you start at 50 or 60? Building muscle past midlife requires patience, consistency and a lot of understanding of how the body works. Like anything precious, it takes time and effort.

And this is why we start with understanding proprioception. We train our brains to respond to stimuli it has never encountered or maybe has met many years back. We condition our muscles to talk to our “nervous system” and not just jump into any exercise randomly. I see friends who lift weights, dumbbells, to just tone their bodies. I am afraid it does not work as simply as that. You need to talk to your muscles, ask them what they can carry and eventually overload them so they can rip and grow. Yes, you need to overload the muscle to react and to build. But it all takes a scientific approach and not guesswork. It is sports science, not guesswork.

Lastly, we need to age well by understanding that we cannot do what young people can – jump and use their bodies because the brain is so elastic it is reactive and performs as it should. As we age, the elasticity, like a worn out or stretched rubberband, needs help. We need priming and we need to be guided by experts. Even if you are not athletic, you need to know how to move, how to walk properly and how to rise from your seat without holding on to the table or a cane.

It is called proprioception.