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Proprioceptive Force Production Cycling

Leveraging Unilateral and Bilateral Training for Improved Athletic Performance and Injury Reduction

What is PFP?

Proprioceptive Force Production (PFP) Cycling is a systematic approach to resistance training programming that strategically programs different types of BIL and UNI exercises based upon proprioceptive demand and force production.

This allows athletes produce higher levels of force despite high levels of proprioceptive demand and instability in functional environments.

The Force-Stability Relationship

Athletes require diverse attributes such as power, agility, strength, balance, and endurance, all of which need to be adaptable to unstable environments in all three planes of motion.

As proprioceptive demand and instability increase, force output by the body decreases. However, by systematically training the body to be able to produce force in unstable environments, we increase the potential for force production despite high proprioceptive demand and instability. Without targeted proprioceptive strength & power training, the athlete will not be able to express these attributes as effectively in unstable, realistic athletic environments.

PFP provides a systematic approach that can progressively challenge the proprioceptive system’s ability to produce force in unstable environments without sacrificing maximal strength and power adaptations, and thereby carries significant dynamic correspondence to sports, tactical occupations, and functional everyday living.

Targeted Bilateral and Unilateral Training

Both bilateral and unilateral exercises offer distinct advantages for the athlete. A balanced approach which emphasizes proprioceptive force production can harness the benefits of both, as they contribute reciprocally to strength development (Speirs et al., 2016).

Bilateral training emphasizes greater overall loading of the kinetic chain, fosters neuromuscular synchronization between limbs, prioritizes agonist muscle activation, and maintains dynamic correspondence with bilateral athletic tasks. In a complimentary fashion, unilateral training involves lower kinetic chain loading, prioritizes neuromuscular control and movement pattern integrity, with higher activation of stabilizing muscles to closely align with the dynamic requirements of unilateral athletic activities.

Exercises within this framework are categorized based on limb usage, foot-to-ground stabilization, resistance force vectors, and core stabilization. All exercises align with functional movement pattern categories. Training sessions or training blocks can be dedicated to a certain PFP category, while a training cycle can emphasize certain categories over others due to factors such as competition, available time, injury status, and specific goals. For example, due to the often scarce weight room time during the in-season along with the unique ability of bilateral training to help maintain strength, more bilateral lifts could be utilized during in-season training cycles. On the other hand, an off-season period would generally permit more training time to devote to higher levels of unilateral training. All in all, however, a consistent utilization of all five PFP categories holds the potential to help athletes simultaneously achieve high levels of force production and the ability to express strength and power in proprioceptively-challenging environments.

The following five classifications comprise the full spectrum of this approach: Stable Bilateral - Unstable Bilateral - Stable Unilateral - Unstable Unilateral (Levels 1 and 2). In an advances athlete cycle for sports which involve high levels of unilateral movement (ie. football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball, track & field, softball, rugby, etc.) it is recommended that athletes work through the beginning and intermediate levels of PFP Cycling below in order to build up the proprioceptive ability to train using all five PFP exercise classifications in the advanced cycle below.

Why PFP Cycling?

Sample Programming Methods Using PFP Cycling

PFP is an adaptable approach to programming for strength and power training. Integration is adaptable to various factors including the athlete's sport or occupation, training age, proprioceptive ability, baseline levels of stabilization, strength, and power, phase of the training cycle, equipment availability, team/group size, time constraints, injury status

It is important to note that the three suggested PFP cycles above depend largely upon athletes’ proprioceptive abilities, rather than only training age or competition level (even within a professional team, some athletes may not be prepared for all unstable unilateral exercises).

A standard recommendation is to utilize two types of exercise classifications (those in blue above) per training session. This will assist in load management, time efficiency, and equipment availability (for teams). Below are samples of both 3 and 4 day training weeks. Core exercises can be placed into supersets or tri-sets with the movement patterns below, while power exercises can be utilized prior to block A. Depending upon other training variables (sport practice or competition, injury status, etc.), the third exercise in tri-sets could either be prehab/mobility or another core exercise.