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Removing vision changes the whole sensory equation. For whom, when and why to close the eyes: sensory reweighting explained simply.
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"Do it with your eyes closed, it'll be harder." You've heard it, you've said it, you may even have programmed it this week: eyes-closed balance, squats on an unstable surface with eyes closed, ankle work with eyes closed. As if taking away vision were automatically progress, and "harder" meant "more effective."
In some cases, you aren't making the exercise deeper: you are disorganizing the nervous system of the person in front of you. And the worst part is that it looks like progress.
Your client closes their eyes, wobbles, stiffens, holds on, and you tell yourself they're working. What you're observing is often compensation.
The nervous system constantly weights vision, the inner ear and the body's sensors, depending on the context, the perceived reliability of each sensor and the task: this is sensory reweighting (sensory integration asymmetry). Closing the eyes therefore means abruptly removing one sensor from the calculation, and the whole equation changes.
Take a very visual client, with an average inner ear and unreliable proprioception (proprioception is not what you think it is). You close their eyes: you remove their dominant sensor without having strengthened the others. The brain reads danger in it, and it locks down: co-contractions, stiffness, faster fatigue.
Conversely, for a hyper-visual, hyper-controlling profile, temporarily removing vision can force the system to reconnect with internal information and let go of conscious control. But only if the task matches their real level, the load is calibrated and the progression is structured.
The classic progression, stable then unstable, eyes open then closed, looks logical on paper, but sensory weighting is individual: what is advanced for one profile is a regression for another.
Before closing anyone's eyes, three questions:
for whom: a profile that needs to let go of control, or one that is already unstable?
when: integration, strengthening, fatigue?
why: to reweight, to test, to load?
Nobody adds 40 kilos to a bar at random. Why do it with a sensory sensor?
Dynamic balance raises the same questions (standing on one leg doesn't prepare you for the field). To learn how to read a sensory profile with RNP, Neuro-Postural Reprogramming, the introduction is free.
You're a practitioner and you want to know whether the training is right for you: book a call with the team.
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