Mind-Muscle Connection

Building A Strong Relationship: Mind-Muscle Connection

By Anthony Harris

February 24, 2017 

"The mind is everything. What you think, you become." -- Napoleon Hill

Naomi and I are always telling our clients while they're executing a specific exercise to think about what the purpose of that specific movement is - what muscles are you targeting, and more importantly, feeling?  We frequently throw around the term "mind-muscle connection" to our clients, but sometimes we get a blank stare, a smile and nod like we are speaking a foreign language, or a straight  "what the hell are you guys talking about?"  Let's address this important principle and see if we all can speak the same dialect. 

Have you been training week in and week out feeling as if you may be going through the motions or having a hard time concentrating (especially when training after or before work with the stress of the day weighing you down)?  Easily distracted in the gym?  Have one particular muscle group you can never get a good pump out of, no matter how hard you try?  You might be missing that essential connection linking the gray matter between your ears and the targeted muscle group without evening realizing it. 

So what is it exactly? We have all heard Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson scream out the word FOCUS! during many of his training videos.  Though it's catchy and funny at times, he's actually talking about mind-muscle connection.  So let's FOCUS for a second and find out more about it.  There is a stigma that resistance training is really nothing more than to move an object from point A to B, and then back to A.  It's all about the physicality of training, right? Wrong.  That's only part of it my friends.  Lifting weights is not only about the physical training; there is a strong psychological aspect to it as well. What do you mean, you ask? Good question. Mind-muscle connection, that is to say, the Focus, may be the most important psychological component of weight lifting. Focus can truly make or break your exercise, your workout, your program, or your fitness goals. 

Mind-muscle connection is a lot like tunnel vision. The classic puzzle game, Where's Waldo? is a great example.  Essentially we are honing our attention at the task at hand.  Trying to find Waldo in that visually dense picture. Our brain first takes in all the elements of the environment and starts processing that information, eluding us what to focus on.  When the image becomes clearer, your brain will move in on one aspect that you want to pay attention to. This is called foveal attention, where the brain focuses our eyes, allowing us to pick up fine detail.  When you achieve that kind of concentration, your perception of the world around you changes and you have a heightened visual experience with the ability to ignore outside stimuli; we're focusing now. Similarly, that's the relationship we want to achieve with our muscles. 

Feeling a connection with your target muscle allows us to control the amount of work generated on a given exercise. Regardless of weight lifted, we are trying to get the strongest contraction possible for that muscle, ignoring the outside stimuli, focusing on the task at hand. Is it easy to do?  I wouldn't be writing this article if it was.  A lot of techniques such as forced positives, negatives, quarter reps, are all used to control the muscle through a certain range of motion and work the muscle harder. But if you focus mentally on how the muscle is working, you elicit the best contraction you can on any given exercise. The rewards are incredible. 

Developing mind-muscle connection takes effort and discipline. Naomi and I came up with some tips and techniques for you guys and gals to readily get that connection on your daily workouts. 

1.  Lose the ego and lighten the weight. This is what warms up are for. Try to warm-up by really squeezing and holding the contraction with every rep. This allows you to mentally connect with the muscle and the purpose of a specific exercise. Then, gradually transition to your working weight to maintain the connection. Sometimes going too heavy too fast causes us to lose the connection, like bad cell service. 

2. Practice posing between sets: This squeezing and contracting of the muscle aids mind-muscle connection. One question I get a lot is regarding back development. I always try to visualize specific areas of my back, because I can't see back there. I must go by feel. One way is by depressing your shoulder blades and then following with your elbows to keep your upper lats fully engaged.

 3. Tension & Tempo: contracting and slowing down the pace of movement, especially the eccentric portion of a lift, keeping that pace consistent.

3. Isometric training: helps develops more of a connection using the ability to focus on one side/muscle at a time. 

Now go out there and FOCUS!!!