Personal training blog

Motor skills, proprioception, balance and co-ordination: vital parts of fitness

A lot of the time our personal trainer clients obsess about being thin and svelte sexy beasts prowling the high street. We can certainly help to get them to this point, but along the way there are other components of fitness that are just as important and which should not be ignored. Although these components are not perhaps the main tools in the weight loss battle (resistance training, cardio-vascular work and good nutrition) they are just as important, and can actually be combined into a weight loss programme to make for a fitter, safer and more all round you. These are motor skills, a group of abilities that contribute to controlled and efficient human movement.

Proprioception is a component of fitness that informs an individual where all the parts of their musculoskeletal systems are and what they are doing relative to each other in space and time. Or in real-speak an innate sense of positional  awareness. It’s a very important part of all round fitness, and all of our personal training programmes will contain elements of this. It really helps you to stay on your feet in sports and every day situations, when children/large labradors/husbands bump into you, uneven pavement threatens to tip you into the road and so on. Open chain exercises where your limbs are free in space as they push a resistance are great for this, as are wobble boards, bosu balls and stability balls. Free weight training is a good example of this open chain exercise.

Balance can be defined as the ability to maintain the centre of mass within the base of support. Again vital in everyday life and really helpful if you want to have fun and be an active outdoorsy type.

Co-ordination can be defined as a controlled interaction between two or more body parts that produces a desired movement under the control of the neuromuscular system.

All human movement requires some degree of these motor skills. The more complex the task the more motor skills are required. Different activities require different combinations of these motor skills, and they are just as essential to a great life and physical well being as being functionally strong, having a healthy heart/lungs and looking great. The whole package if you like. So try something new, get your personal trainer to make you do things that you may not be used to doing. If you can skip, try to skip backwards. If you like to jog, try to do some agility footwork before you go out; you never know when you might need to be agile.

Keep it varied, and good luck!