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ARGENTINA Proprioceptive Training |
By James Crompton
Argentina’s skiing and demos were some of the strongest on display at Interski: dynamic, explosive and powerful. I was interested to hear about their novel way of training proprioception and joined their afternoon workshop which started with a short indoor presentation before moving out on snow to try it for ourselves.
Indoors
The crux of the session was to use elastic resistance bands whilst skiing, to aid proprioception - the awareness of one’s body with respect to the environment, how they move and how much strength our muscles need to use them. We started indoor by defining proprioception as:
- Providing sensory information about the position and movement of the head, torso and joints
- A consciousness of how our muscular system behaves in space
- To improve our dynamic adjustments to maintain balance
The research presented asserted that, in terms of proprioception, our brain collects 70% of its information from stretch receptors in muscles and joints, compared to just 20% from vestibular organs in the inner ear and 10% from the eyes.
Other sports commonly use elastic bands to warm up specific muscles we are about to use. I’m aware that they have been presented at Interski before, but this was my first time using them in an Alpine environment.
Outdoors
Out on the mountain we got to experiment and try a host of different ways of using the bands of different resistance/thickness whilst skiing. Whilst at times it looked like we were being tortured(!) it was a lot of fun and, personally, really useful. Some of the ways we used the bands included (amongst others):
- Around the boots/ankles/thighs to help with stance width
- Looped around the back and around the hands to assist arm carriage
- Under the boots and over the shoulders to maintain progressive flexion/extension movements
- Crossing from under one foot to the opposite shoulder to develop angulation
I found the bands really heightened the sensations of which muscle groups I needed to use to hold a certain posture and move in the desired way. I could instantly understand how useful they would be in helping a student do this whilst setting up an additional, instant feedback loop that doesn’t require the instructor to be present.
On a personal note, I’ve always struggled with discipline in my hand carriage and in the last twelve months with my hip angulation. I found them really impactful in raising my awareness of these shortfalls. I didn’t need anyone to tell me, I didn’t need to watch a video - I could feel it instantly. Through the extra muscular effort required to resist the bands, they also heightened my awareness of what muscles I needed to use to stand and move more effectively in these areas. A consciousness that genuinely carried over later that day skiing without the bands.
If the team from AADIDESS have been training with these, the proof is in the skiing because they were ripping all week! A super engaging workshop with lots of skiing and a really fun crew to spend an afternoon with - thanks Caro, Danisa, Dana, Matthias and Juan Manuel!
