Unleashing Your Full Training Potential with Mind-Muscle Connection

Mind-muscle connection has seen a bit of hype recently and rightly so! Let’s talk about what it is, how you can apply it to your training, and the benefits!

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Your mind-muscle connection relates to your ability to focus on actually feeling each rep of an exercise in the correct target muscles. It is a psychological aspect of training that can help ensure you are recruiting the correct muscles when you train.

They say to make every rep count! And this is true! We should be aiming to make every rep of an exercise worthwhile! You can help achieve this by focusing your mental energy on feeling each repetition of an exercise correctly and through the right target muscles.

Many people just go through the motions of an exercise without thinking too much about which muscles are actually working. This is a leading cause of poor technique as people are just not aware of what their body is doing.

Bodybuilders and trainers have been using mind-muscle connection for years to help enhance their training. You may hear speculation from some about whether this psychological aspect of training is really that important…

Coming from a dance background, I think body awareness is essential to improve technique and coordination during an exercise. We can get so much more out of our workouts if we focus on what muscles we are actually trying to work, rather than just daydreaming about dinner tonight! You've made the effort to get to the gym or exercise, so make the session count!

There has been a lot of research done in relation to mind-muscle connection over the years. Current evidence does suggest a potential for better strength gains, which can lead to increased muscle growth and performance.

So I personally am all for the mind-muscle connection!

By tapping into our mind-muscle connection, we can make a conscious effort to focus on feeling each rep of an exercise in the specific working muscles. Being aware of the deliberate muscular contraction that occurs throughout an exercise can help you improve your ability to actually recruit the correct muscles.

Using our mind-muscle connection means the primary working muscles of an exercise have the ability to recruit better, and the secondary muscles then do not need to kick in to help as much. This leads to better isolation of the target muscle or muscle group.

The Benefits of Using Mind-Muscle Connection:

• Increases body awareness

• Helps to prevent injury

• Improves your form and lifting technique

• Feel more engaged in your session both physically and mentally

• Get more out of your current workouts by just focusing on your mind-muscle connection

• Improves coordination

• Reduces muscular and strength imbalances

We now know the benefits that mind-muscle connection can bring to your training. So, let’s talk about how you can improve yours!

A Fun Way to Work on Improving Mind-Muscle Connection:

A fun exercise to try is simply attempting to flex certain muscles to help isolate them. Activating certain muscles through flexing can help improve your ability to recruit those particular muscle fibres, this can make it easier for you to activate them when lifting. If you are able to focus on particular muscles without weight, it makes it easier to focus on them with weight as the muscles will naturally recruit when under load.

I know what you might be thinking… “I don’t want to be standing in the gym flexing, people will judge me!” Well, you could do this fun little exercise at home or in private anywhere before heading into your workout.

Give it a go and see how good your mind-muscle connection is! I recommend spending about 10 minutes trying out this exercise. It could become a regular exercise you add to your routine, especially if you are trying to improve your mind-muscle connection.

Tips for Applying Mind-Muscle Connection in the gym:

• Lower the weight:

Focusing on your mind-muscle connection means you may have to drop the weight a little lighter, to give you an opportunity to recruit the correct muscles and not others. I can guarantee you that swinging around heavy weights in the gym will just lead to poor form and injury. Leave your ego at the door and put your mental focus into lifting slightly lighter weights with the correct technique and good mind-muscle connection. Once you master this, you can safely increase your weight while maintaining a great mind-muscle connection.

• Slow down your movements:

Slowing down each rep of an exercise can help ensure you have the ability to focus on the recruitment of the target muscle/s. We want to focus on creating tension in the right muscles and this usually requires us to slow things down a bit.

Try to focus on squeezing the specific muscle you are trying to work on the concentric phase (lifting portion of an exercise), and use a 3-5 second eccentric phase (lowering portion of an exercise) to maintain tension throughout the whole movement.

• Use visualisation:

Take an opportunity to visualise the exercise you are about to perform. Picture the target muscles contracting and relaxing/releasing during the exercise. This can be done before you attempt a rep. This tip can help some people perform the exercise better depending on your learning style!

• Use Cues:

Generally, cues are verbal and used by personal trainers or coaches while training a client. A cue is a word or phrase that is designed to help someone achieve a certain movement or execute it better.

You can use cues in your own training by thinking of them during an exercise to help you perform it with more mind-muscle connection. Cues can draw your attention to the target muscles allowing more activation. For example, on a Seated Cable Row - Think about squeezing your shoulder blades together as you pull the cable towards your body. This can help increase awareness around the muscles in the back activating and recruiting to execute the Seated Cable Row.

To recap, using our mind-muscle connection during an exercise can help increase the recruitment of the correct muscle fibres, and it can help you isolate the specific working muscles of an exercise.

Mind-muscle connection is such a vital tool to use in the gym to enhance your training and achieve better muscle recruitment. Try it out on your next training day and see how you go!