Understanding sensory vs. motor drastically improves training outcomes

Sensory before motor from Taylor Kruse on Vimeo.

People say to me all the time - “why didn’t i get this kind of result when i rehabbed my injury!?”

And my answer is often times the same. Because you had too significant of a sensory deficit too benefit from the exercises that you were doing!

What does this mean? It means that if you can’t feel things appropriately and you don’t know where your body parts are then your brains proprioceptive map will suffer. Movement will deteriorate and pain could be the result. Sensory needs to come before motor!

You would be amazed how many people (elite athletes included) have significant sensory deficits! Do you have clients that just don’t seem to make progress? Training them to feel and know where their body parts are could literally fix them or at least drastically help!

People with injury histories that include surgeries, chronic ankle sprains, disc herniations, tattoos, scars, broken bones (the list goes on) probably didn’t get proper sensory rehab and thus have a pretty blurry sensory map of their body. Don’t you think it would be difficult to move well if your brain isn’t sure where your body parts live?

There are many different kinds of sensory drills. In the video (scroll right) i give an example of a basic sensory mapping drill. i am teaching the athlete where her leg is. We are doing this to improve her left side coordination! I’m having her use her left hand to target and the sensory information that she feels will eventually end up in the contralateral cortex where i am suspicious of her needing activation. As you can see, her left sided rapid movement improved with more speed, endurance and accuracy! Her sensory mapping improved, also!

At TMP everything is done with a purpose! 

About the Author:

Taylor Kruse, recently featured in Men's Health, is dedicated to empowering you with the truth and tools for improved health and performance.

His inspiration stems from more than 10 years of education and coaching through systems like Zhealth Performance, The Burdenko Method, and various movement practices.