Before every movement, an invisible decision

There is a precise moment where everything is decided, a moment you can't see and perhaps don't test yet, but which determines everything that follows. Before the body moves, even before the muscle receives the order, the nervous system makes the call.

The sensorimotor loop in four steps

The nervous system receives information from the environment, interprets it, makes a decision, then sends a command to the muscles. It is at the third step, the decision, that everything is played out (the motor decision).

At this stage, it assesses perceived stability, the amount of information available and the level of risk. Then it decides: either it allows the movement, or it limits it, brakes it, secures it.

Why your corrections don't always hold

You correct the movement, the posture, the trajectory. Sometimes it works, but often it doesn't hold, because the correction arrives after the decision. You are intervening on an action the system has already judged uncertain or risky.

Stabilization before movement

In the neurophysiology of postural control, one principle is well documented: reflex stabilization precedes voluntary movement. It is automatic and unconscious, and it secures every movement before it even starts (the pontomedullary reticular formation).

Without it, the brain activates its protective mechanisms: muscle stiffness, postural compensations, limited range of motion. The movement then becomes a response to the quality of the perceived information.

The right question becomes: what is preventing the system from allowing this movement? As long as the sensory information is not clear, stable and reliable, the system will not give access to its full potential, however good your instructions are.

What RNP changes

RNP, Neuro-Postural Reprogramming, mostly changes the moment at which you intervene: before the movement, before the compensation. You read what the system perceives, you identify what blocks the authorization, such as a disturbed sensor or a poorly integrated archaic reflex (definition), then you intervene on the right input: proprioception, inner ear or vision.

Posture is regulated automatically, by neural networks we do not consciously control. To act on it, you therefore have to go through the same pathways: calibrate the sensors and make the sensorimotor loop work.

When the information becomes clear, adaptation becomes possible.

To discover this reading, the introduction to RNP is free.

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