Work The Muscles, Not The Weight

CUTLER: WORK THE MUSCLES, NOT THE WEIGHT



How to boost your mind-muscle connection.
October 1, 2009
FLEXONLINE.COM

Jay Cutler has won three Mr. Olympias (2006, 2007, 2009) and finished second a record five times (2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008). He shares his ideas about strengthening the mind-muscle connection as well as how he tops out his traps.


CUTLER ON MINDING YOUR MUSCLES

• “Do not think of the weight going up and down; instead, visualize your muscle tightening and firing during the contraction, then resisting and lengthening during the extension.”

• “To reinforce the mind-muscle connection, I practice posing the muscle I’m working between sets.”

• “Go with your own instincts. There’s not always a right or wrong way of positioning for an exercise. Find out what works right for you and your structure.”

• “Work the muscles, not the weight.”

<TABLE style="COLOR: #000000" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="50%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BACKGROUND: #b10b1c; FONT-WEIGHT: bold" colSpan=4 align=middle>JAY CUTLER’S TRAPS ROUTINE


</TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #000000; COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ffffff 1px solid">EXERCISE </TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ffffff 1px solid" align=middle>SETS </TD><TD align=middle>REPS </TD></TR><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid">Upright rows </TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid" align=middle>3 </TD><TD align=middle>8-12 </TD></TR><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid">Dumbbell shrugs </TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid" align=middle>3 </TD><TD align=middle>8-12 </TD></TR><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid">Behind-the-back barbell shrugs </TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid" align=middle>3 </TD><TD align=middle>8-12 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

good advice

When you really focus on squeezing the muscle and building that mind-muscle connection, you'll see better results

This is why I love watching Kai's workouts. He seems to get the mind-muscle connection better than most. He seems to have such deep purpose to every movement in the gym.

big n wv said:

When you really focus on squeezing the muscle and building that mind-muscle connection, you'll see better results

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I've been concentrating on doing that, and it seems that I am getting far better results than I used to.

I need to do a better job of this. Usually I only focus on the muscles being used when I'm working back. Just to ensure I'm working the lats and not the arms.

I pretty much do that already, thats prolly why I have big traps for my size tho

saudades said:

I've been concentrating on doing that, and it seems that I am getting far better results than I used to.

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For some it's hard to get past the thought of using lighter weights so that you can really focus on squeezing every rep because it's hard to do if you're using heavier weight