Proprioception, or "do you know where your body is?"

“Did you feel it?” This is one of Karl’s (my trainer) three most common questions/comments to me during our weekly sessions at the National Training Center. The other two are “again”, usually after I just finished what I thought was the last set of an exercise group that left me gasping and doubled over, and “are you OK?”, which I assume means he’s probably worried that I may be having an impending coronary event. I don’t think he really wants to be responsible for my demise although sometimes, toward the end of a particularly brutal set, I think it would be divine justice if I grabbed my chest and keeled over……..

 

The “did you feel it?” is his query to determine if what I have been doing in our conditioning sessions is translating into a difference in how I run. This season of training has resulted in several discoveries on my part. One of these is how different my legs are. The left leg is stronger and more stable and I tend to use it more to compensate for the weaker, less stable right leg. I never appreciated this. It helps to explain many of the problems I have had related to running over the course of my adult life: the issues with my right knee of years ago, the various “-itises” I have have dealt in my left leg, including iliotibial band syndrome, obturator syndrome, and sciatica, all related to excessive stress and strain placed on that leg. Karl has me do various stretches and exercises designed to strengthen my right leg and/or correct the imbalance between the two legs. Understandably, he wants to know if I am feeling any benefits from these manipulations when I run. Up til now, not. This week, for the first time, I did.

 

Proprioception is one of our more important senses. The classic five senses- sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste- are all external. They allow us to receive input from the world around us. Proprioception is an internal sense. It allows us to know where our body, and its various appendages (arms, legs, hands, fingers) are in space. We know if we are upright, sitting, or lying down without having to look at reference points. We use this sense unconsciously millions of times each day. To use a simple example, take driving your car. To stop you don’t have to look down to lift your foot from the gas pedal to move it to the brake. You know where your foot is. While driving, you can adjust the air conditioner, adjust the volume on the radio or change the station, activate the turn signal, pick up something off of the seat, and do a host of other things without looking away from the road, all because you know where your arms are at all times, without even realizing it. If we had to consciously look around at every moment to see where we are, life as we know it would be impossible. That’s proprioception.

In my running, Karl is trying to get me to run with my elbows held back, high, and bent at 90 degrees (so you can run with a pearl in the crook of the elbow without dropping it), use my hamstrings and gluteal muscles more as these the biggest and strongest muscles in the lower body, and, most important, lean forward. The latter is important because it pulls the body forward and all the feet have to do is keep up. These three things increase one’s running efficiency and help conserve energy, two very important advantages in endurance events like an ironman. It has been hard to “feel” these changes but this morning I did. The session called for 2 hrs with 60 minutes of 9:15 min/mi pace or faster and the remainder easy. Rather than try to obsess about pacing, I try to run according to perceived effort and this AM I ran at what I thought was a good pace for a 2 hour run. Halfway into the run, I could tell I was tiring a bit, but suddenly sensed that I was moving faster and more efficiently. Taking a “running” inventory (pun intended), I realized that I felt like I was leaning a bit more, and was using my hamstrings and “glutes” more. I felt like my speed actually picked up, without adding to my perceived effort. The end result was a run of nearly 11 miles in 1:40, or 9:10 min/mi for the entire run. Longest run this year and one of my fastest. I cut it short because I felt I had done enough for one morning. It was a nice feeling and further validation of my training so far.

Florida Ironman Training Log:

It has taken nearly 9 months but I am finally perceiving some objective fruits of all the training. I can ride my bike at a moderate to moderately hard effort for hours at a time and feeling like I have some gas in the tank at the end of that. The bike saddle seems to have molded to my butt, or vice versa; no numbness during the ride and no soreness after. I feel like my comfortable cadence on the run is faster and I move more efficiently. The swims are feeling good and I have confidence that swimming the full 3900 yards ironman distance will pose no serious challenges (as long as I stay out of the aquatic scrum in the middle of the mass start!)

This weeks totals:

Mon., 8/12- Swim, 2550 yards @ 2:12 min/100 yd, total time 1:03:16 hrs
                      Cycle (spinning), 7/28 miles @ 14.6 mph, total time 30:00
Tue., 8/13- Swim (at NTC), 1900 yards @ 2:20 min/100 yds, total time 49:12 min
                     Strength training, 1 hour
Wed., 8/14- Run, 3.5 miles @ 9:00 min/mi, total time 31:31 min
                      Cycle (spinning), 2.49 miles @ 12.9 mph, total time 30:06
Thu., 8/15- Swim, 3250 yards @ 2:23 min/100 yds, total time 1:17:26 hrs
Fri.,   8/16- Run, 11.33 miles @ 9:10 min/mi, total time 1:48:49 hrs
Sat.,  8/17- Cycle, 78.76 miles @ 15.8 mph, total time 4:59:33 hrs