Ep 30: Is Your Proprioception Affected When You Have an Injury?

The short answer is yes! Now let's talk about how. Proprioception often referred to as your body's sixth sense. It's your innate ability to perceive the position, movement, and action of your body parts in space, without having to look at them. This complex sensory feedback system involves receptors located in the muscles, tendons, and joints that constantly send information to your brain about your body's positioning and movement. 

This episode is dedicated to realizing your degree of proprioception, what happens when you injure yourself, and the effects it has on your proprioceptive feedback loop.

I can't wait for you to listen!

Yoga for Injury Management: 8-week Mentorship
https://www.enhanced-body.com/yoga-for-injury-management

Transcript

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The short answer is yes. Now let's talk about how. Proprioception often referred to as your body's six since. Is your innate ability to perceive the position movement and action of your body parts in space. Without having to look at them. This complex sensory feedback system involves receptors located in the muscles, tendons, and joints that constantly send information to your brain about your body's positioning and movement. Proprioception allows us to perform everyday activities seamlessly, such as walking. Reaching for objects or maintaining balance without consciously thinking about each movement. It is crucial for coordinated motor control, balance and injury prevention and enables your body to react and adapt to changes in the environment with precision. To sense and enhance your appropriate reception. You can engage in various exercises and activities. Designed to heighten your body awareness and improve neuromuscular control. Simple practices like closing your eyes while performing balance exercises can challenge and strengthen your proprioceptive feedback loop. You may have heard me mention in episode 29, just the last episode. About mindfulness activities, such as yoga Tai Chi, and I'll even add Pilates to the list here. Um, to emphasize controlled movement and body awareness, which makes them excellent activities for boosting proprioception. Now, if you incorporate uneven surfaces to your movement, practice and daily life such as balanced boards. Stability, bows and different services such as carpet or grass, or even sand. These can further stimulate and improve your proprialceptive awareness. Practicing exercises on these surfaces regularly helps you sharpen your appropriate, receptive sense, leading to better coordination, improved athletic performance. And a potential reduction in the risk of future injuries. I want to dedicate this episode to proprioception specifically what happens when you injure yourself? And the effects it has on your appropriate receptive. Feedback loop. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright, and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you if you're a yoga teacher, you're looking for support, you love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business, and helpful ideas, tools, strategies, and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you want to dive deep and set yourself up for success. I'm so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now, let's do this together. Welcome back to the podcast. Okay. I have so many favorite episodes so far. But this one is going to be right up there at the top as well. Today. I want to walk you through the injury to recovery process and the effects of this physical trauma, your body experiences, because injuries can significantly disrupt your body's proprialceptive feedback loop. When an injury occurs, it can damage the proprioceptive receptors, which then impairs the transmission of crucial sensory information to your brain about body position and movement. This disruption leads to a decreased ability to sense joint and limb positioning. Resulting in instability. Poor coordination and an increased risk of further injury. The impact on proprioception can be immediate due to trauma and inflammation. And can persist long-term if not properly addressed through rehabilitation and targeted exercises aimed at restoring proprialceptive function and neuromuscular control. Proprioception is known as the body's sixth sense. It's the ability to sense the position movement and action of your body parts in space without having to look at them. It involves a complex network of sensory receptors. Nerves. And your brain, which worked together to provide continuous feedback about the body's position. And movement in space. So let's start off with what happens when an injury occurs and then understand what happens afterwards that potentially disrupts your appropriate, receptive feedback loop. And then we'll end with rehabilitation and recovery options for you to consider. I'm just going to talk to you as if you're the one that's injured, but you can learn this information so that you can understand your students better. Say for instance, they show up to one of your classes injured, or maybe you have a private client who has injuries. Okay. The following are the types of injuries, which lead to proprialceptive disruption. First are ligament injuries such as ankle sprains or ACL tears, ACO. Uh, stands for anterior cruciate ligament. It's a ligament in the knee joint that connects your thighbone or your femur bone to your tibia. One of the lower leg bones often referred to as the shin bone. So remember ligaments connect one bone to another, or bones to bones. Without getting too deep here. I want you to understand that ligaments contain a high density of proprioceptive receptors called mechanical receptors, which detect changes, intention, and position. When a ligament is sprained or torn, these receptors are damaged or destroyed. This damage reduces the sensory input to the brain. Impairing the ability to accurately sense joint position and movement. This can lead to joint instability as the brain receives incomplete. Or incorrect information about the joints status. Nexstar joint dislocations. For example, shoulder dislocations, dislocations stretch, or a tear, the joint capsule and surrounding tissues, which how's proprialceptive receptors. The trauma from the incident can disrupt the normal function of these receptors. Leading to a loss of proprioceptive feedback. Repeated dislocations exacerbate the problem by causing further damage and weakening in the joint. Making it more difficult for your body to sense and correct. Improper positioning. And finally muscle and tendon injuries such as muscle strains. Tendon ruptures. Muscles and tendons also contain proprialceptive receptors within the muscle spindles and golgi tendon organs. Injuries to these tissues can damage these receptors. And when these receptors are damaged, the brain receives less accurate information about muscle tension. And length, impairing coordination and increasing the risk of further injury. So let's pause here for a bit, because I want you to understand the difference between a sprain. With an SP. And a strain with an S T a sprain. And a strain are both injuries that affect the soft tissues of the body, but they involve different structures and occurred due to different mechanisms. Uh, sprain with a P is an injury to a ligament. The tough bands of fibrous tissue that connect bones to each other and stabilize joints. Sprains occur when a ligament is stretched or torn. Due to sudden twisting. Uh, turning or trauma that forces the joint out of its normal range of motion. Some commonly affected sites. Are your ankles. Knees wrists. And even your thumbs. And symptoms include pain, swelling, bruising, and limited ability to move the effected joint. In severe cases, a popping sound may be heard at the time of the injury and the joint may feel unstable or feel like it's going to give away. A strain with a T is an injury to a muscle or tendon. The fibrous cords of the tissue that connect muscles. To bones. Strains occur when a muscle or a tendon is overstretched or torn due to excessive force overuse or sudden movements. This can happen during activities that require a high levels of muscle contraction or sudden changes in movement. The most commonly affected sites, especially in yoga students are the hamstrings as well as the rotator cuff muscles that surround the scapula. Symptoms include pain, muscle spasm, feeling of weakness, swelling, and difficulty moving. All right. Now that we've gone through that. If you've gotten distracted, I know this can be a lot to take in, but come back to me now, because we're going to talk about the key differences. Between the two are sprains occur in ligaments, strains occur in muscles or tendons. Sprains are typically caused by trauma or an impact that forces a joint beyond its normal range of motion. Strains are usually caused by overstretching or over exerting or overuse of a muscle or a tendon. The symptoms of a sprain. Include pain, swelling, bruising, instability, and limited joint movement. The symptoms of a strain also include pain, but might also include a muscle spasm, weakness and swelling. It's always a good idea to see a doctor and get a medical diagnosis, but this helps you as a yoga teacher because you understand in your mind. What your student is experiencing. So, for example, if your student has a hamstring tendon tear, a strain, You would know not to give them. Uh, deepest cyst. That's going to stretch their hamstrings and the hamstring tendons more. Right. So you see how having a working knowledge of common injuries helps you serve your students better. And it's not about diagnosing or working outside of your scope of practice. That's the biggest pushback that I hear all the time. instead it's information that you need to know when you're working with bodies. Okay. Let's talk about the process of proprialceptive disruption. First you have the initial trauma and injury. Whether it's a sprain, a tear or a dislocation. This initial trauma causes immediate damage to the appropriate receptive receptors. In the effected area. The local trauma also leads to inflammation, which can further disrupt nerve function. And proprioceptive signaling. Next is inflammation and swelling. Your body's inflammatory response to injury involves swelling, which can compress nerves and receptors. Further reducing proprioceptive input. Pain associated with inflammation can indeed alter movement patterns leading to compensatory behaviors that may hinder normal proprioceptive feedback. Next is potentially nerve damage. Not always, but potentially. If the injury involves nerve damage, such as severed or compressed nerves, the transmission of proprioceptive signals to the brain is directly impaired. Damaged nerves might also lead to abnormal or exaggerated signals. Contributing to a distorted sense of proprioception. And finally reduced sensory feedback. The cumulative effect of damaged receptors, inflammation, and nerve impairment is a reduction in the sensory feedback provided to your central nervous system. Your brain relies on accurate proprialceptive input to coordinate movement and maintain balance. When this input is compromised. Your brain struggles to make precise adjustments, leading to instability and impaired motor control. So let's talk about long-term consequences. First you might experience chronic instability. Ongoing proprialceptive disruption can lead to chronic joint. Instability as your brain continues to receive insufficient or incorrect information about your joint. Position. Next is the possibility for increased risk of re injury. When you are appropriate, reception is impaired. It makes it more difficult to avoid hazardous movements, which increases the likelihood. I have recurrent injuries. And finally you might experience delayed rehabilitation. Effective rehabilitation relies on restoring proprioceptive function. Persistent disruption can slow recovery and hinder the return to normal activities. Have you heard of the term smudging? Smudging in the brain is a term used to describe the phenomenon where the brains representation of a specific body part. Becomes less distinct following an injury. Your brain has a somato sensory cortex, a region where different parts of the body are mapped out. This mapping is very precise with each body part, having a specific well-defined area in the cortex. After an injury, especially if it leads to chronic pain. The boundaries between these areas can become blurred or what we call smudged. This means that the brain's ability to accurately perceive and differentiate. The effected body part from others is diminished. And as a result. You may experience altered sensations, such as difficulty in localizing pain. Feeling that your injured body part is larger or smaller than it actually is, or even experiencing pain in areas that were not directly. Injured. So let's finish up by discussing path to rehabilitation and recovery. First is training your proprioception. So doing specific exercises designed to improve proprioception. Such as balance training joint position since exercises. And functional movement drills. These exercises help to retrain your brain to accurately interpret. Proprialceptive signals and improve your motor control. Next is neuromuscular re-education. Practice techniques that focus on restoring the communication between your nervous system. And mussels. Which leads to enhanced proprialceptive feedback and coordination. These can include activities like stability, ball exercises, balance board training, and agility drills. At the level you can tolerate. I must stress that. Right. Find the level where it feels right to work on these drills and work from there. And finally is physical therapy, a well thought out program curated and taught to you by a physical therapist. Can help address proprioceptive deficits through targeted interventions. They can teach you exercises that you can do at home, in between sessions as well as how to progress. Or regress exercises based on the progress you're making. Therapists have various techniques that they can use such as manual therapy, electrical stimulation. Ultrasound therapy, kinesiology tape, and functional movement training to support your recovery. When you understand how injuries impact proprioception, you also understand how it affects your students? It can also inform your teaching. Maybe you create sequences or themes that focus on proprioceptive awareness and help your students understand what it is. And how to improve it is specially after an injury. I think one of the greatest parts about being a yoga teacher is that you can actually help your students notice. And improve their sensory feedback, their coordination. And their overall movement efficiency. But it's going to come at a cost. We got to stop racing around the mat and rushing from one pose to the next. Oh, did I say that out loud? That is a conversation for another day. And I'm excited to have that conversation. Alright. I love having these conversations and I want all teachers of movement to understand how a working knowledge of terms and concepts around the body and movement can elevate your teaching. Teaching concepts and having students practice them is one way to divine yourself as a teacher. I hope that this episode sparked some deeper thought around what happens in the body when an injury occurs and how it can affect proprioceptive awareness. I've added a link in the show notes for you to send me a quick text message about your thoughts on this episode or any other. I will not know your phone number. It's just an addition to the platform that I use that allows for this new and super easy way for you to communicate with me. Once you click on it, it will take you to your messages. Don't delete the code though, because that's how your message will get to me specifically. And I would love to know your thoughts on this topic. I love diving into these conversations because there are so many important. Uh, discussions to be had in the teaching world. And you know, that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life. And allow it to be fulfilling and rewarding, and sometimes it takes some work. And maybe even some deeper conversations to get there. If you loved this episode, let me know, subscribe to the podcast. So you're always in the know when a new episode drops and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. Thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. If you've been taking notes in your journal, as he listened to these episodes, I'm so glad that you are. And I would love to hear about that too. Finally, don't forget to join my newsletter. That's just for yoga teachers. I've got some exciting teachings coming soon. So I want to tell you all about them. The link is in the show notes below. And I would love for you to join it so we can always stay connected. All right. That's it for now. Bye. Mhm.