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Neuroathletic training & performance
I just can't do that – is it worth taking a closer look at your nervous system?
“I just can't do that.” Perhaps you know the feeling from skipping rope, catching a ball or trying a balance exercise. You tried, it became a struggle, and eventually you wrote it off. Yet that sentence describes your experience so far. It does not have to define your final limit.
When an experience becomes a judgement about yourself
It often starts with a particular situation: the ball misses your hands. You lose your balance on one side during an exercise. Or you struggle with your gaze when skipping rope. Over time, this becomes a broader judgement: I'm clumsy. I'm not a ball-sports person. Balance just isn't my thing.
Those experiences are real. Their explanation, however, remains open. Practice, previous experience, strength, mobility and the conditions of the task all play a part. Processing sensory information can also contribute to the difficulty.
Taking a closer look at a limitThe useful question is: which particular demand is making this movement difficult for you right now?
What your nervous system needs to bring together for a movement
To catch a ball, you see it, judge its movement and bring your hands to the right place in time. Meanwhile, you keep your body balanced. An apparently simple action therefore consists of several smaller tasks.
These involve visual information, signals from the balance system and feedback from muscles and joints. Your nervous system processes this information and coordinates movement accordingly. If one part is difficult, the whole action can become a struggle. A failed attempt alone cannot show how much that particular part contributes.
Why I ask about specific situations
In my work, I therefore want to know exactly when something becomes difficult. Can you do a task slowly but not quickly? Does one side stand out? Does a particular direction of gaze make a difference? Does the unsteadiness only appear when your head or body also moves?
These differences help turn a general description into questions we can examine. “I'm bad at balancing” might become: what changes during the same standing task when we add a particular visual demand?
An experience with skipping rope
A woman I worked with did not initially describe any symptoms as her main concern. As we talked further, she mentioned difficulty with her gaze while skipping rope, and with a single-leg balance position with the torso leaning forwards on one side.
On closer assessment, tracking a moving target upwards stood out. During this task, the muscles being tested were less able to resist a gradually increasing, controlled load. After a targeted intervention, the findings were initially a little less pronounced. Later, the woman told me that skipping rope was no longer causing her any problems.
This is one experience from practice, followed by personal feedback. For me, it mainly illustrates why I examine familiar difficulties more closely: sometimes an approach emerges that the person had never connected with their movement.
From closer assessment back to movement
A functional assessment starts with your concern and a suitable baseline task. Depending on the question, we examine individual demands such as gaze control, balance or body awareness. We then compare whether a specifically chosen approach changes anything.
An improved test provides an initial indication to guide the next choice. What matters is whether the change also helps with your actual task and carries over into everyday life or training. That is exactly why the later feedback about skipping rope interested me so much.
Which movement have you already written off?
You do not have to enjoy every sport or make an exercise you dislike your new goal. But if a difficulty limits you or keeps you from something you would like to do, a specific question is worthwhile: what part can I not yet manage, and under which conditions?
Try to describe a particular situation rather than label yourself. This gives us a much more useful starting point for the next steps.
Your question as a starting pointIn a free first conversation, we discuss which movement you find difficult and whether a functional assessment could be a useful next step. Find out about the free first conversation