As many of you may be taking your first serious dive into the world of fitness, you might be gaining exposure to many new fitness-related terms on the web or in conversations with others, which could be leaving you lost and with many questions. If you’re reading this post, one such term that might be confusing you is the mind-muscle connection. If you haven’t heard of this term before, then this will be a great opportunity to learn about an important concept that could radically change how you work out.
The mind-muscle connection (MMC) may seem like a rather sophisticated term, but the concept is actually pretty simple and can be incorporated by people with any level of experience.
Does this Sound Familiar…
Like I’ve mentioned in other posts, if you’re a beginner who engages in a consistent workout routine over an extended period of time, you’ll likely see noticeable physical changes pretty quickly due to the effects of newbie gains. However, some of you might also then really struggle to see continued progression beyond this point, which can certainly be quite a letdown.
At a glance, it seems like you’re doing everything right. You use proven exercises and execute all of your movements with immaculate form. You include an appropriate number of exercises for each muscle group and perform an adequate number of sets per exercise. What could you possibly still be doing wrong?
In the end, it might not come down to what you do, but how you feel.
Even though you’re going to the gym frequently, you might just be going through the motions of the exercises without truly challenging yourself each time. You’re focused on having good form, but you’re not thinking about whether you feel the muscle activation with each repetition or how long that activation lasts. You’re doing a sufficient number of sets for every exercise, but you stop well short of your limit with each and never reach the point of fully exhausting your muscles.
The Mind-Muscle Connection Explained
At this point, you probably have a sense of where this is going. The mind-muscle connection is about concentrating on creating and maximizing tension in your muscles when you exercise, and generally taking a more conscious and active approach to working out. Establishing such a connection means you’re constantly making sure that you’re experiencing full contractions in your muscles for adequate periods of time, as opposed to mindlessly performing the motions.
For example, let’s compare two different ways you could do a simple exercise like a bicep curl. The first way is to simply lift a dumbbell with one hand as you scroll through your phone in the other and think about what you’re going to do after the gym. However, if you were to employ MMC, you’d focus on squeezing your bicep as much as you can with every curl, controlling the pace of your movements in order to increase the duration of the muscle contractions, and really trying to “feel the burn”.
Now, as I alluded to earlier, it’s important to keep in mind that MMC isn’t equivalent to good technique. Even with correct lifting technique, you might find that you’re not really engaging the target muscle all that well. In reality, because everyone’s bodies are different, there’s no one exact way to perform an exercise. To produce the optimal amount of tension, you may need to modify your angles, positions, and hand placements, as long as you’re still within acceptable technique guidelines. In some cases, you might realize that an exercise just doesn’t activate your muscles no matter how you tweak your form. If this happens, there’s nothing wrong with simply replacing that exercise with something that works better for you.
How Does It Benefit You?
Employing MMC has several benefits that can lead to more effective muscle growth over time.
Target Muscles with More Accuracy
If you’re able to feel the muscle stimulation when you train, this helps ensure that you’re doing exercises correctly and using them to target the right muscles. Otherwise, if you’re not paying attention to the feedback from your body, other muscles could take over the movement without you realizing, and it would be hard to tell if all the effort you’re putting in is being used in the way you expected.
Increase Muscle Activation
Though it might sound strange, it’s been shown that in many cases, simply thinking about the muscle you’re using can increase muscle fiber activation, as opposed to performing the same movement without establishing any mental connection.
Add Volume to Your Workout
On top of that, in order to generate more tension in your muscles, you’ll likely end up increasing your total training volume through a combination of heavier weights, more reps, and longer duration. As a result, this additional load on your muscles will also contribute to greater hypertrophy.
When Should You Use It?
Even though the MMC principle is very intriguing and you may be excited to begin implementing it for every exercise from now on, don’t get too carried away just yet. The truth is that MMC might not be beneficial for all workouts.
When it comes to isolation exercises, MMC can certainly help you more effectively target individual muscles. Therefore, you’ll want to begin incorporating it the next time you do curls, pushdowns, raises, and other isolation movements.
On the other hand, where MMC doesn’t seem to have much added benefit is for compound exercises, such as benching, deadlifting, squatting, and shoulder pressing. This is because compound movements simultaneously involve multiple muscle groups, so focusing on any of these muscles individually doesn’t have too much impact on the exercise as a whole.
On top of that, the heavier weights that compound exercises tend to incorporate mean that you typically fatigue more quickly, so trying to overthink the exercise and feel the contraction in every muscle will result in you tiring out before you reach your full rep potential. This can actually end up hurting your muscle development. Because of this, with regards to compound exercises, what you should focus on instead is just completing the movement correctly and achieving progressive overload by increasing the weight and number of reps over time.
By the way, if you’re not too familiar with the distinction between compound and isolation exercises, check out my post explaining the differences between these two types of exercises.
A Takeaway for Everyone
MMC can really transform your approach to working out. Instead of aimlessly swinging weights around hoping your muscles will magically grow, implementing MMC to become aware of and leverage your body’s response to different exercises will make your gym sessions much more productive.
For some of you, learning about this could become an absolute game-changer. It might totally reshape how you perform your exercises and even which exercises you choose to do in the first place. You might find that this was the missing piece holding you back from reaching the next level in your fitness journey all along.
For others, maybe you’ve already been practicing this and didn’t even know it. You’ve already subconsciously figured out that focusing on your muscle contractions is key to making the most of your gym sessions. Well, at least now you can put a fancy name to this idea and show off just how knowledgeable you are about working out!
