Mind/muscle connection

So you've gotten your diet in order, you're getting enough sleep. You're training as hard as your body will physically allow you to go. Unfortunately you aren't growing. Something is missing, but how could it be? The answer may simply be in your mindset while working out, the mind-muscle connection, or lack thereof.

The Crucial Part

The mind-muscle connection is as much a crucial part of maximizing gains as anything else. The problem lies when people are focusing more on just getting the weight to move than they are on getting the correct muscles to do the work. The first key to doing this is to understand what each muscle is actually intended to do. When you ask a person what the pectoral muscle does, you generally get "it's for the bench" and quads are "for squatting."

I'll use the example of biceps, being the classic muscle to work out. Try this as you're reading, simply contract your biceps. What do you have to do? You have to curl your arm. Now obviously the only way to make the muscle grow is to make getting into that position as difficult as possible. Examining the barbell curl in this sense:

Practice Form

When the average person takes a barbell into their hands, they think of one thing: getting that barbell to the top under any circumstances. Now the next time you get into the gym and are working your arms don't put any plates on that bar at first. Simply pick up the bar and again contract your arms as hard as you possibly can. Take a moment to look at where your arms are. Your upper arms should be hanging straight down, your elbows are at your sides, and your forearms are up as high as they can without being vertical.

This is exactly where you want to be at the top of a barbell curl. If your elbows are forward, your upper arms not straight down, and your forearms are vertical, you will find that your biceps have relaxed. This is obviously counterproductive. Now lower the bar slowly as far as you can without straightening your arms out. You will again notice that your biceps are tense for the entire movement, and this is exactly how a barbell curl should happen.

Contracting The Muscle

The key point here is that the focus, rather than being on moving the weight, should be on contracting the muscle. Your muscles have no idea how much weight is being moved, or how the weight is being moved. They can only do one thing, and that is pulling their designated limb into their designated position. In the case of the barbell curl, the only thing the biceps do is pull the forearm toward the upper arm.

If, during a curl, your body is doing anything extra, then the biceps are not working. It's as simple as that.

A muscle can only pull, realize this. A muscle cannot push. When a muscle contracts, it shortens, pulling the attached limb along with it. A squat is a combination of a few muscles working synergistically: The quads work to pull your lower leg straight with the upper leg; the calves push your lower legs to parallel with the ground; the glutes and hamstrings work together to pull the entire leg straight with the upper body. This is the action of a squat. When you squat, you must realize what muscles are pushing from where and work to think the muscle into a contracted position, rather than just focusing on the weight on your back.

Resistance

Again I must emphasize that your muscles only feel resistance. If your arm is only capable of curling 75 lbs, 115 lbs can only be given 75 lbs of resistance at the most from your biceps, the only difference being that along the way you put your back at risk from cheating. Piling on extra weight and hurling it around with your hips isn't adding resistance to your biceps, more weight can't magically add to the capabilities of your muscles, it only means that in order for you to move the weight, you must transfer the workload to other muscles, which defeats the purpose of any lift.

I hope the next time you get into the gym, you think of your lifts in this manner. Just remember that going heavy is the name of the game, but under no circumstances should that mean you go heavier than the target muscle is capable of moving on its own.

The Mind-Muscle Connection
By Chris Fernandez, ACE Certified Personal Trainer


The mind muscle connection. What does this really mean? If you have been working out for awhile you have probably heard of this before. But do you understand its significance? This is the one principle that can change your training forever, and make the training that you are doing now, more productive and efficient.

Simply put, the Mind Muscle Connection (from here on referred to as MMC), is a synergistic connection between mind and muscle. In other words, when you want your body to feel a certain way during training, you can focus on that individual bodypart and make it feel what you want it to feel. Some of you may remember hearing or reading stories about how Arnold would use 25 lb. dumbbells (or something to that affect), and do 15-20 reps with them really slowly and make himself think and visualize that they were 60 lb. dumbbells. In essence he was tricking his body into thinking that he was lifting a heavier weight than he really was. This is the core mechanism of the MMC. "Feeling" what you are doing instead of just doing it.

Now, this principle is easier said than done. If you are a beginning exerciser, do not get frustrated if you are doing pull-ups one day and you only feel your biceps burning and not your back like you are "supposed" to. It takes time to master this, but once you do, you will tap into potential that you only imagined that you had access to.

When I train my clients, I try to stress this principle right from the get-go. Even though they might not feel it, I keep harping on the idea that they are supposed to feel it in a certain area, and that they should concentrate on that area as if there were no other muscles in their body. Often when I work out with people, I am doing an exercise, say chest presses with a barbell, and I grimace in pain as I lay the weight down and complain that it "burned" my chest. When they proceed to try this, they simply look at me like I’m crazy. But when the next day comes, you can guess who is more sore. That is the secret. Tapping into your body’s unlimited potential to grow. In order to activate each muscle fiber, you must master this form of concentration. Sure, it might be possible to get just as sore beating your muscles into submission doing every exercise that you can think of in one day, but this is neither efficient, nor a good long term solution and will quickly lead to burn out and overtraining.

Many bodybuilders that have been working out for years, often tell wildly unbelievable stories about how they only work out for 30 min. and only do one bodypart at a time like just triceps, or just back. You may then ask yourself how the heck they can get the physiques that they get by doing so little. Isn’t more better for you? What has happened here is that they have mastered the MMC principle. By doing less and focusing more on the exact bodypart that they are working, they are not only cutting their workout times in half, but they are getting results far faster than a beginner. Why spend 2 hours in the gym doing 5 exercises for chest when you can spend 1 hour doing only 2-3 exercises, be more sore the next day, and get better results? This is what it’s all about.

When you first start working out it may not be possible to do this right away. That is why beginners usually need more time in the gym than a more advanced trainer, besides the fact that the advanced trainer has already spent years discovering which exercises work best for them.

Strategies for Improving the MMC


There are two ways that you can teach yourself the MMC and get there faster than simply trial and error:


Learn to Isolate Bodyparts in Single-Joint Movements: Practicing the MMC for single joint movements is a great way to start and build up to multi-joint exercises. What I mean is this: slow down, take your time, lower the weight, and feel yourself doing it, rather than just trying to get it over with. If you are doing biceps curls, start with a lower weight, make sure that your form is impeccable (that means no swinging, no twisting, and no body English whatsoever), for at least 10 reps. If you cannot make it without cheating, then drop the weight. Remember, it does not matter how much weight you lift, it matters how it feels and if it is working the way that it’s supposed to! Leave your Ego at home. When you are doing the exercise, FEEL IT! Look at your arms flexing as the weight is brought up. Do you feel that burn? Good, now keep going! Don’t stop because of a little pain. Your body does not improve because you quit when it started to hurt, your body improves because you have pushed it beyond its normal limits, to places where it has never been before. You can get a spotter to help you on the last few, but your form must not vary, it must stay impeccable and flawless. This is the key to making this work.


Learn to Isolate Bodyparts in Compound Movements: It’s easy to feel a biceps curl or a calf raise, but how about a pull-up, or bench presses? This is when your MMC is tested. Compound movements are movements that involve more than one joint, typically they are harder to isolate specific bodyparts on because the force gets distributed throughout the joints involved. When you are doing compound movements like these you must make sure that you are not using to heavy of a weight. On pull-ups, if you can only do 2-3 on your own, the chances of feeling it in your back are not good. Try an assisted pull-up at a machine instead. As you are raising yourself up, forget about your arms. Pretend that they don’t even exist. Think of them as hooks, that are attached into your lats. The lats are the ones pulling, not your arms. "FEEL" your shoulder blades coming together as you are doing a seated row, "FEEL" your lats burn as you pull yourself up off of the ground.

For a bench press, it is a similar endeavor. Forget about your arms and shoulders. Think only chest. Envision your pecs coming together as if you were posing, feel them as they contract forcefully to bring the weight up slowly. Again, you must not cheat. No bouncing the bar off of your chest, or going up or down too fast. You must feel at the top and bottom of the movement that your chest is doing all the work, and nothing else.

You must be patient with yourself. This is a tedious process that can take years to master. You know that you are getting there when you can flex any muscle in your body just by thinking about it, and not moving a limb. Simply sitting in a chair you can flex your hamstrings, biceps, lats, etc. WITHOUT moving your arms or legs to make it easier.

The MMC is one of the final domains of the elite bodybuilder. It is a well kept "secret" that you won’t hear to much about. It is not as sexy as a drop set, but in the end it is more powerful and efficient than any other principle around. Learn it, use it, and master it, and your bodybuilding will never be the same.

Great Post. I need to read this every once in a while to remind me. I find myself going for weight instead of form. Just a bad habit people get into sometimes.

Great articles Scorpio. I've been trying to use my mind while I'm working out... this is a good reinforcement of it for me.

by Hugo Rivera and
James Villepigue

Learning proper exercise technique is the backbone of every fitness program in existence, for if you train improperly you will not stimulate the intended muscle, risk major injury and receive little or no results. When you learn to use proper exercise technique, you will receive twice the results in half the time, GUARANTEED! In addition, you will be less likely to get injured during your training career.
We see people in the gym day in and day out having no idea how to properly train their muscles. Some of them are professional bodybuilders, some are professional athletes, and some are certified fitness trainers.

James:
Now imagine what you would accomplish if that concentration were projected while performing an exercise.


Unfortunately, the ones who really suffer most are people like you who rely on these role models for wisdom and guidance. We are not trying to put down the current professional stars. We are just trying to point out that sometimes you have to be careful with whom you learn exercise form from; don't automatically assume that because someone is a professional bodybuilder or fitness trainer they know what they are doing.

We will focus this article on what we believe to be the most important foundation principle governing proper technique and form. It is a principle we refer to as the "Muscle/Mind Connection".

The principle is based on the linkage of the mind and body, and the mind's ability to magnify the motor functions of the body.

For instance, have you ever noticed when you’re playing a certain sport that you do much better when you really focus on what you’re doing? How about when you find yourself entrenched in a novel or movie, totally focused on your target? Did you realize that someone had been trying to get your attention for a few minutes? No, because you were within the moment, focused on your activity.

Do you realize what you accomplished from your ability to focus? You allowed yourself to become fully engulfed in your project where total comprehension of the subject was facilitated. Now imagine what you would accomplish if that concentration were projected while performing an exercise.

If you allow your mind to focus on your exercise, or more specifically, the muscle you are trying to isolate, before and while in motion, you will produce an astonishing compounded effect. When most people do a specific exercise, they simply go through the motion of that exercise, unaware of what is actually going on within their muscle bellies.

The reason it is necessary to focus on the muscle group being worked is to ensure full stimulation of the muscle by recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible, thereby getting all we can out of that muscle for optimum results. Most people try to do this, but fail. Instead, they either use too much momentum to help jerk up the weight, they use awkward leveraging positions to heave it up, or call upon various unwanted muscle groups to join in the compounded movement. ONCE AND FOR ALL, THIS IS WRONG!

If you want to fully train a specific muscle and expect to fully recruit as many muscle fibers in that muscle as humanly and genetically possible, you must follow guidelines. First you should always know beforehand exactly what primary muscle you will exercise. Next, you must prepare to focus 100% of your concentrated efforts on that specific muscle belly (Again, realize that most people, most probably including yourself, are simply aware of the "outer" visual muscle they are exercising, while failing to consciously focus on the "inner" unseen portion of their muscle belly. We call this "putting your mind in the muscle.")

Hugo:
Applying proper exercise form & technique, is the most important component of any fitness program

Finally, choose a weight that you can control, not a weight that controls you. Remember, weights are the tools that you will be using to sculpt your body; we are not in a powerlifting contest (and even in a powerlifting contest you need good form or else the repetition will not count).

Let's actually put the technique described to work by pretending that we are about to begin a barbell biceps curl.

Before you lift the bar, position yourself accordingly, and position your hands on the bar. As you hold the bar across your thighs, begin to isometrically contract (flex your biceps muscle without moving) the biceps muscle even before you begin the lift.

As you begin the curl, make sure that while going through the entire range of motion, you are simultaneously concentrating (put your mind in the muscle) and isometrically contracting (flex your biceps muscle without moving) the biceps muscle.

Next, when you reach the top of the movement, or total range of motion of the biceps curl, once again simultaneously concentrate 100%, while you invest all of your efforts to isometrically contract the biceps muscle (Flex the muscle as hard as you can).

Do you realize what you have accomplished in response to the said protocol? You have created a muscle recruitment compounded effect, by consolidating three powerful lifting components and multiplying the advantages of the exercise.

In other words, you have taken three separate training components; one being the traditional biceps exercise motion, two, the isolated concentration and focus on the biceps muscle, and three, the isometric contraction throughout the entire exercise.

When you incorporate this training technique with the proper exercise form, your muscles will be used in the most productive way possible, by stimulating that muscle 50% or more than if you hadn’t incorporated the technique.

We guarantee, that like us and all who have practiced the technique, you will feel your muscles being stimulated much more than usual. What does all this mean? In laymen terms, it means: results in half the time! Did you hear that? RESULTS IN HALF THE TIME!!!

Applying proper exercise form and technique, is without a doubt, the most important component of any fitness program for without proper form and technique, many, many set backs will occur.

First, the musculature you intend to exercise will less likely be stimulated.

Second your probability of getting injured will increase dramatically.

Exercise should not be focused around just lifting barbells and weights. It shouldn't’t just concern how much you can lift.


Optimum fitness is about the quality of exercise, the quality of your form and how you maintain that form, especially during heavier lifting. It comes down to this; If you want to get the most out of your workout, keep the intensity high, WITHOUT sacrificing proper form.

Neglecting to focus on proper form equals no results, while practicing perfect proper form equals incredible results quickly!

Hugo A. Rivera

James Villepigue,
Vice President Custom Physiques Inc. certified by ISSA and AFAA
Strength/ Conditioning Coach for United States Karate Team.