Why is proprioception work so important for a skier?

01/30/22 • 8 min

Now that ski season is in full swing and we are gearing up to hit some of those all time favorite spots. Let’s make sure your bodies are truly ready to handle the conditions of the mountain. I have written some posts on ankle strength/mobility, the importance of balance training, understanding the need to have strong hamstrings in addition to your quads and having upper body strength as an important need especially in case you were to encounter a fall. But if we were to put this all together we begin to understand why proprioception work is so important for a skier.

What is proprioception?

Proprioception, sometimes also called kinesthesia, is the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions. It’s basically a continuous loop of feedback between sensory receptors throughout your body and your nervous system. Proprioception is the body’s ability to receive input through receptors in the skin, muscles and joints, and transfer the information to the brain through the nervous system so that the body can sense itself.

Something I should point out as it relates to skiers and snowboarders more here....Kinesthetic awareness is the conscious effort to react to the situation, whereas proprioception is an unconscious or subconscious brain process.

Take an example of a skier moving through different types of terrain; the skier’s body acts subconsciously to stay upright while their mind processes the upcoming terrain of bumps, trees, and steeps and makes the appropriate adjustments. The light bulb should have gone off in your head because now it would make sense why balance, single leg and plyometric exercises would become an important addition to your pre/post-season training program.

When dealing with injuries or injury prevention, we need to focus on the whole chain, the whole kinematic chain. How the foot/ankle move affects the forces at the knee which then affects the rotation patterns at the hip which then affects the relationship between the pelvis, sacrum and lumbar spine.

Several studies have shown that athletes with better proprioception are less likely to sustain ankle sprain injuries. Which again is why this is an important style of training that should be added into everyone’s training programs. Balance training programs are known to be effective, apparently through enhancing neural processing of sensory signals. Another strategy is to enhance those sensory signals. Athlete’s footwear (ie. sneakers or ski boots) substantially impact their performance through sensory feedback. Hence the reason why you might want more Ankle Flex in a ski boot (see my prior post on Ankle Flex).

So you might be thinking what are some

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What is proprioception?

So you might be thinking what are some

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Previous Episode

How does working my entire kinematic chain increase my run performance?

By now you may have read one of my weekly posts or multiple of them where I talk, educate or discuss some of the common injuries that beginner or novice runners may experience. Recently I went live 3 days in a row where I discussed one of the most common injuries a majority of people are complaining about or suffering with, Shin Splints. On the second and third day I talked about how working the entire kinematic chain will be your key in helping you resolve this problem.

Let me break it down for you.

Running is a single leg sport which means each leg needs to be able to work independently throughout the entire gait cycle. The gait cycle starts when one foot makes contact with the ground and ends when that same foot contacts the ground again. Once you understand the term gait cycle then you can begin to have a better understanding of how to resolve the problem.

This is something I addressed which is to have a gait analysis done or have a professional like a running coach or physical therapist or sports medicine doctor who works with runners review video of you running from the back and the side. Knowing if you pronate, supinate, have high arches, flat feet, if you hinge forward in your run, how the heel strikes the ground or which part of your foot strikes the ground first will give you answers on how to make the necessary changes to prevent an injury from setting in. This will also provide you with better insight as to which running sneaker will be best for you.

Finding your muscle imbalances, compensation patterns or weaknesses before strength training. This is another key component. Reason being if we start strengthening muscle groups before addressing the imbalances then we are going to create more compensation patterns which could lead to more injuries down the road.

So this means looking at the muscles that surround our core, our hips, our thighs and our lower leg. The importance of flexibility and mobility work prior to strengthening the muscles. This piece of the puzzle I think gets overlooked. Knowing when to stretch, the type of stretching to do (passive, active or resistance) helps improve our run. Which then can aid with mobility of the entire kinematic chain along with the use of some soft tissue work. This helps with increasing speed, pace, stride length and overall enjoyability of the run itself.

If you have any specific questions about how working your entire kinematic chain will benefit your run performance, drop a comment below 👇

Check out this video on Ankle Strengthening Exercises

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VO2Max what is it and why does it matter?

If you are like me you’ve seen this word thrown around in various running groups and may have wondered what it is. VO2Max stands for maximal oxygen uptake and it's a training tool used by a fitness professional to determine an athlete’s capacity to sustain exercise.

Now you might be thinking but I just started running so why would I want to know this information. Well if you have dreams of running a half or full marathon or maybe even one day doing an ultra run or even a triathlon then knowing your VO2Max will help you when it comes to designing your training program. What we are looking at is your aerobic endurance capacity here. How much oxygen can an individual utilize during intense exercise.

In order to find out your VO2Max you would have to do one of these things:

You would go to a facility that specifically tests for VO2MAx by connecting you to a computer along with an apparatus that measures the amount of air you exhale. More than likely you will either be on a treadmill where the intensity will be increased until you can not go any further. The computer will measure the volume of carbon dioxide and oxygen of the air you expired during the test.

An indirect way to figure out your VO2Max would be to walk as fast as you can for 1 mile. Note the amount of time it takes to complete the mile and then take the heart rate. Next is to use this calculation VO2 = (HR x SV) x a-vO2 .... HR = Heart Rate and SV = Stroke Volume and a-vO2 represents the oxygen in the muscle cells & the the volume of oxygen that is released.

As you continue to train/run your VO2Max will naturally increase. You will notice this when you look back and say to yourself “wow I am not out of breath after a mile or two”. The muscles in your body will respond accordingly meaning you won’t feel exhausted after the run. These are signs that you are increasing your aerobic capacity which ultimately means your VO2Max has increased as well.

If you want some more tips on training/preparing for your next up and coming race drop some comments below

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