What is proprioception?
Proprioception (pronounced “pro-pree-o-ception”); is a series of muscle and nerve communications that tell your brain where your body is in space. It allows you to move quickly and freely without having to consciously think about it.
Proprioception is a constant feedback loop within your nervous system and is often called our hidden sixth sense.
The cells in our body that sense proprioception are called proprioceptors. These are located in our muscles and joints and they process sensory information when our body moves.
When we move, the stretch on our muscles and the position changes of our joints sends proprioceptive feedback to the brain. This lets our brain know where our arms, legs, and body are at any given moment, which is important for our coordination.
The way we can tell that an arm is raised above our head, even when our eyes are closed, is an example of proprioception. Other examples may include your ability to sense the surface you are standing upon, even when you are not looking at the surface like if you are walking on a grass verge or pavement.
Almost all mammals have it proprioception.
Cats are a good example of how it works as they have a natural sense of where their body parts are in relation to the ground, hence cats mostly land on their feet when falling.
Proprioception gives our horses the ability to walk without thinking about where they are placing their feet, but also to provide stability to maintain balance and stay upright, perform fine movements and make precise and sudden changes if the situation changes.
The whole body has to communicate to make sure that the animal stays upright. A prime example of proprioception and spatial awareness is when your horse bends round to itch a back foot. In the same action, the horse bends round to the side, lifts and brings forward the hindlimb and itches the exact spot with its muzzle as it knows precisely where the itch is on its body.
If your horse trips a lot or is often hesitant to walk on different surfaces this could mean their propreoception needs more deveopment.
Helping us Balance
Proprioceptive sense helps to support our balance. It again works with the vestibular sense, which is primarily responsible for balance. Our proprioceptors give our brains even more information about where our body is and this helps with our balance. For example, if you step on an unstable surface, you receive vestibular information from your inner ear about the change in head position and you receive proprioceptive information about the position that your ankle, knee, and hip are in. The combination of this information helps your body keep upright and not fall over.
If you have been injured, or are feeling stiffness or are very tired, your proprioception system may become disorganised, leading to inability to function properly. Also lack of use can lead to problems if the nervous system and brain don’t get much input, they ‘forget’ about certain body parts and will not be able to move them supply or even estimate the abilities of them, leading to falls and bumping into things for example.
Proprioception Summary
Our proprioceptive system helps us to:
- Know where our limbs (arms and legs) are. For example, when we take a sip of our drink, we don’t have to look at the cup we move it to our mouth. If need be, we could make this movement with our eyes closed! It’s the proprioceptors which send the information about where our hand is to the brain.
- Grade our force and speed of movement. If we think back to the cup, we typically don’t crash the cup into our mouth. Our proprioceptive sense makes sure our hand moves smoothly and slowly enough to reach our mouth, without hitting ourselves in the face or spilling water. (In theory at least if they are working well!)
- Maintain our muscle tone. We talk more about muscle tone below but it’s the resting tension in our muscles
- Maintain our balance. This is super important. If you stand on one foot and close your eyes, you should feel some movement at the ankle. This movement is your proprioceptors telling your brain what’s happening at your ankle. They’re helping your vestibular sense to make sure you don’t fall over.
How to improve Proprioception
For ourselves we can practice by exercising, practicing yoga and pilates, balancing on one leg, using Franklin Balls training, trying to do exercises blindfolded etc.
For our horses
The same as above we need to exercise our horses regularly so they don’t lose these vital senses. Things like pole work and walking on different surfaces also will help.
