Proprioception – often referred to as the body’s “sixth sense” – is the ability to perceive the position and movement of our limbs in space without visual input. It is crucial for maintaining balance, coordination, and movement control.
How Proprioception Works
- Proprioceptors located in muscles, tendons, and ligaments send signals to the brain to regulate balance and posture.
- Efficient proprioception allows the body to anticipate instability, react reflexively, and avoid injury.
Why Train Proprioception?
Modern lifestyles and sports activities often neglect proprioceptive training, leading to:
Learn more about proprioception- Chronic Instability: common in ankles, knees, and hips.
- Injuries: such as ligament tears, fractures, and tendonitis.
- Neurological Decline: reduced reflexes and balance, especially with aging.
The Riva Method trains proprioception through dynamic instability, improving reflex activation of stabilizing muscles and restoring natural grounding.
Sensory channels.
The proprioception supremacy
The millions of sensors related to movement and the maintenance of posture and balance are the source of billions of signals.
A large flow of these signals is essential both to maintain a good level of motor skills and to enable the “maintenance” of muscles, tendons and bones.
Here are the main sensory streams that originate in our bodies:
- Exteroceptive (from skin receptors sensitive to touch, pressure…)
- Proprioceptive6 (from receptors in muscles, tendons and joints)
- Vestibular (from the organ of balance)
- Visual
Sensory channels. The height of the columns is proportional to the quantitative importance of the channel.
Proprioception
and “deep brain”
da Ghepardi da salotto 2008 D. Riva 2019 4th edition
Proprioception comes from Latin (proprium = own) and means “reception of own signals,” that is, from own structures. Proprioceptive signals, in fact, arise from sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints and are the most important sensory channel…
The proprioceptive misunderstanding
Proprioception comes from Latin (proprium = own) and means “reception of own signals,” that is, from own structures. Proprioceptive signals, in fact, arise from sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints and are the most important sensory channel…
