Can you feel it?
I want to talk today about the difference between proprioception and interoception, especially when it comes to movement. First, let’s define the two:
Proprioception is the ability to sense your body’s movement and position
Interoception is the ability to sense how your body feels
Let’s clarify interoception a bit. Sensing how your body feels refers to things like hunger, thirst, physical sensations of emotions (having “butterflies in your stomach” for example), awareness of your pulse, and so on. Included in interoception is the feeling of muscle engagement. And that is what I want to talk more about today.
As a dancer, I’ve spent years honing my proprioception; my awareness of where and how my body is moving in space is strong. And this is an important skill for all of us to have. Regardless of our level of physical activity, being able to safely navigate our surroundings is important, and part of that stems from proprioception.
Interoception, however, is something I struggle with significantly! I have fairly good interoception of my leg muscles — I can sense those muscles engaging and how that feels. But when it comes to the rest of my body . . . SO HARD! For example, even with a simple bicep curl, where I can SEE that my biceps brachii is engaged, I don’t actually have an internal sense of that engagement. If you ask me “where do you feel the work,” my answer is more general: the arm, the hand, the shoulder. My brain is unable to distinguish the work of the biceps brachii from other muscles. And that’s a problem! We need to be able to sense how our body feels while moving, not just how we are moving.
So, how to work on this? It’s a lot of mental work plus muscle activation. In the example of the bicep curl, I usually do an isometric hold for a good length of time, sometimes using my other hand to “feel” my bicep, and then really trying to “sense” the area. I am trying to clear away the cobwebs and give my brain a clear sensation of how it feels when that muscle is engaged. And with some time, I start to feel something — I can localize the work to my biceps brachii and my brain now has better interoception of the muscle.
Try this for yourself — do a movement where you know you have a specific muscle engaging strongly and then see if you can internally sense that engagement. Let me know if you need suggestions for how to start!