You can be strong, fit and disciplined—and still move poorly. That’s because motor control for athletes involves much more than muscle strength.
Perhaps your squat feels awkward despite having plenty of leg strength. You lose stability when changing direction, struggle to reproduce good technique under fatigue, or find that one side never seems to move quite like the other.
Every movement you make depends on your brain receiving information about your body, interpreting it and sending an appropriate response back to your muscles. This continuous conversation between your nervous system and body is known as sensorimotor control.
Your Brain Is Running the Movement
Before your muscles produce force, your nervous system has to organise the movement.
Your brain continually receives sensory information from your muscles, joints and other tissues about where your body is positioned and how quickly it is moving. This internal awareness is known as proprioception.
Research increasingly shows just how important this system is for athletic performance. A 2024 systematic review found that proprioceptive training positively influenced areas including balance, coordination, explosive strength, speed, agility, postural stability and muscle activation. [1]
In other words, building a stronger engine is useful—but you also need a nervous system capable of controlling it.
Why Strength Doesn’t Automatically Equal Quality Movement
Imagine an athlete who can produce enormous force but has poor awareness of where their knee, hip or ankle is during a landing. More strength doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. In some circumstances, it could simply mean producing more force through an inefficient movement pattern.
Good motor control is about producing the right amount of muscle activity, in the right sequence, at the right time.
This becomes particularly important during unpredictable movements. Running across an uneven surface, reacting to another player or changing direction at speed gives your brain fractions of a second to interpret sensory information and adjust your movement.
A 2022 systematic review examining proprioceptive training found improvements in both proprioceptive and motor performance across the included research, reinforcing the connection between sensory information and how effectively we move. [2]
That helps explain why quality training shouldn’t focus solely on lifting heavier, running faster or doing more repetitions. Technique, balance, body awareness and movement variability matter too.
Motor Control for Athletes: Where Does Your Spine Fit In?
Your spine is an important source of sensory information for your brain. Movement in and around spinal joints contributes information that the nervous system uses as it coordinates posture and movement.
Research by New Zealand chiropractor and researcher Heidi Haavik and neuroscientist Bernadette Murphy reviewed evidence suggesting that altered sensory input from dysfunctional areas of the spine may contribute to changes in sensorimotor integration—the process through which the brain combines sensory information to produce appropriate motor output. [3]
Their review also examined evidence that spinal manipulation can influence sensory processing and motor output.
This doesn’t mean an adjustment instantly makes someone a better athlete. Athletic performance is far more complex than that. It does, however, provide an interesting neurological reason to consider spinal function alongside strength, conditioning, recovery and skill development.
Train the Movement, Not Just the Muscle
If you’ve been training harder but your movement still doesn’t feel right, adding more weight may not be the first thing you need.
Pay attention to how you move. Can you maintain control when you slow an exercise down? Do your left and right sides behave differently? Can you maintain good technique when you’re tired? Are you stable when movements become fast or unpredictable?
These details can expose limitations that a strength number alone won’t reveal.
Quality movement comes from a brain and body working together. Strength gives you the capacity to produce force; motor control helps you use that force efficiently, accurately and at the right moment.
Looking Beyond Strength at NorWest Chiropractic
At NorWest Chiropractic, we look beyond where something hurts and consider how your spine, nervous system and movement patterns are functioning together.
If you’re training consistently but feel that your movement isn’t matching your strength or potential, a chiropractic assessment can look at spinal function, movement and other factors that may be worth addressing.
Train hard—but make sure you’re training a body that can move well, too.
Sources:
[1] Yılmaz, O., Soylu, Y., Erkmen, N., Kaplan, T., & Batalik, L. (2024). Effects of proprioceptive training on sports performance: a systematic review. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 16, 149. [link]
[2] Winter, J.A., Huang, Q., Sertic, J.V.L., & Konczak, J. (2022). The Effectiveness of Proprioceptive Training for Improving Motor Performance and Motor Dysfunction: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences. [link]
[3] Haavik, H., & Murphy, B. (2012). The role of spinal manipulation in addressing disordered sensorimotor integration and altered motor control. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 22(5), 768–776. [link]