Fun fact and additional benefit to training that you don’t think about

Somewhat recently in listening to a podcast I learned something that I thought was pretty interesting. I don’t remember what the podcast was about exactly, but one of the things referenced was about people reporting the feeling of it feeling like someone was behind them. Specifically, about how some research had shown that essentially this is the mind playing tricks on us. Going VERY briefly into it, our kinesthetic sense is how our brain uses our senses to tell our body where it is in space. Doing things like being active and training helps increase your kinesthetic or body awareness, which helps your brain more accurately depict where you are in
the space around you. Essentially, what this study found is that if your body awareness sense is off, then you can think someone is standing behind you, but what’s actually happening is your brain is telling you that because it believes your body is in a different place than it actually is.

I know…blah blah blah, why is that important? Well let's apply that in another scenario, you are stepping down off of something (curb, ladder, step, whatever) and because your body’s ability to figure out where it is in space is off, you land awkwardly. You’re looking at the ground, but for some reason your foot either A.) lands earlier than you expect, and you’re not ready for it or B.) lands later than you expect and you land on a locked knee and hurt it or even go down. The more you train and make your body to move differently in space the more you hone these skills. This skill is why you run into someone in an aisle and think “how on earth did they not see me there?” or the frustrating person who’s standing in the middle of the aisle and just seems to be making the perfect moves to continually get in the way. They just don’t know where their body is in space and how to actually create space from objects or other people. It's just another reason why training is so important and why you notice that after just a little bit of training, your reflexes seem sharper, you don’t fall as much, ect. It’s the other half of the puzzle. Keep it up!

Coach Adam