OnFitness Magazine - March/April 2022 - 52

WWW.ONFITNESSMAG.COM | VOL 22 NO 5 | 2022 52
SMART
TRAINING
Eyes-closed training improves movement
mechanics and muscle function,
particularly when combined with eccentric
isometrics. The reason for this is that
closing your eyes on any exercise forces
your muscle spindles and other
proprioceptive mechanisms to work
overtime to stabilize your movement and
control the load. In other words, it teaches
you to rely more on kinesthetic awareness
rather than sight. Instead of watching your
way through the movement, feel your way
through the movement.
Here are some examples of applying
eyes-closed training to eccentric isometrics.
Although much of the eyes closed
training involves eccentric isometric
variations on squats, hinges, lunges,
presses, pulls, and core stabilization drills,
it also includes eyes-closed training on
explosive movements such as jumps and
Olympic lifts.
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Performing unstable exercises such as
bottoms-up movements and hanging band
drills with your eyes closed is an
incredibly effective way to clean up your
technique and movement patterns.
Combined with eccentric isometrics this
kicks up the level of somatosensory
feedback and kinesthetic awareness several
notches. In addition, it truly forces you to
master your body mechanics as anything
but the perfect technique will be
immediately punished with uncontrollable
levels of instability. Just be prepared
physically and mentally, as these are some
of the most challenging yet effective
variations you'll ever attempt.
Jumps and explosive movements
Most athletes cannot properly activate
their feet and ankles when jumping and
landing. This can compromise force
production and force absorption not to
mention placing the athletes at greater risk
for injury. Performing jumps, hops, depth
drops, leaps, and skips, with your eyes
closed, is a highly effective method for
resolving this issue. That's because your
feet and ankles must work overtime to
lock you in and control your body. In
other words, the visual feedback you've
relied upon to compensate for your
neuromuscular deficiencies is no longer
something you can use as a crutch.
Instead, your somatosensory system must
work overtime to provide feedback and
motor control.
No mirrors
Consistently relying on a mirror represents
one of the more destructive training tools
you could use when it comes to adhering
to somatosensory feedback and
proprioception. Whenever you use a
mirror, the image from the mirror reflects
back to your retina and gets processed by
your occipital lobe before the brain
cognitively compares this image with the
desired outcome, which requires further
processing.
Cerebellar coordination of movement
modification in response to the visual and
cognitive processing steps can take two
hundred to five hundred milliseconds,
which is roughly eight to ten times longer
than it takes proprioceptive mechanisms
such as muscle spindles to respond. If you
use a mirror to make corrections, by the
time you've made the adjustments, the
error has already transpired whereas
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OnFitness Magazine - March/April 2022

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