People who train tend to train just for the sake of having a better body, staying in shape, etc. That's all fun, but don't expect to grow as fast as someone who knows what he's doing in the gym.
You've seen me talk about alot of things here along the years. Strength training methods, mass gaining, splits, variety in workouts, deloading, fitness type or functional strength training like crossfit, etc. But one thing I never really elaborated on was the brain-muscle connection.
It's something that almost feels magical once you actually got it down good. I remember back when I first started working on it how awesome of a workout I could get using less weight. I was stunned.
What is it?
The brain-muscle connection is your ability to flex individual muscles and isolate them from other muscle groups. By developing your ability to do that with every muscle group you have, you will have alot more control on the muscles you'll be using for each lift. Ultimately being able to isolate which body part you want to work on in a lift. Better control on your muscle groups means a few things. You won't have to use as much weight to get a workout more intense than the ones you've had before. Less chances of injuries from wrongly using small supporting muscles to compensate during leverage. It also means you won't come into situations like "why are this or this muscle sore. I thought this was a *this muscle* exercise".
One of the good examples is usually the chest flies with which people tend to use their front deltoids to mimic the "arc" motion and their chest to press through it. However, what you should really be doing is focus on both of your pecs flexing towards each other, while locking your arms in place, causing the "arc" motion.
Basically, focusing on this will help you achieve better workouts and lower your chances of injury. And hopefully make those of you who think doing 59 trillion sets of 42 quadrillion billion reps will make you grow understand you can get away with mild volume and have some pretty sick results.
How to develop it
There are a couple ways to go about this. You can either do them at home or at the gym.
Flexing sessions
These are preferably done after a workout with the muscle group you worked on that day. Spend 10 minutes or so contracting the body parts you worked on as hard as possible. 20 seconds contractions with a minute break, a few times. Then go on to individual flexes, your left pec, your right rear delt, etc.
Poses are good because they force you to flex the whole muscle group. Like a most muscular after chest day, abs & quads after leg day, lat spread or back double bi after back day, and so on. Don't just "hit the pose", while you flex, focus on feeling those muscle groups contract as hard as possible.
Flexing at home
You're fresh and now's the best time to try and flex each muscle individually. Go from top to bottom or the opposite, it doesn't matter. Flex your left calf for 20 seconds as hard as you can, take a minute break and go again, for 3-4 sets. Do it without pointing your feet! Then the right. Move on to your quads, hamstrings, glutes, lower back (yep...it's possible!), lats, delts, arms, traps, etc. Don't skip any muscle.
You don't have to do it in 1 sitting, you got the whole day. If you do a muscle group, do your 3-4 sets, do whatever you gotta do; masturbate, draw with sperm, whatever. Then do other groups.
Now I KNOW alot of you will have issues flexing certain muscle groups on their own. It's just like when you first learned to flare your nostrils or move your ears or whatever. It takes a couple tries and you'll look weird trying, but it's worth it. You can start by mimicking the motion of an exercise that typically works that body part and try to feel it working. Then shorten the range of motion of the exercise while keeping that muscle as tight as it was until you can do it without having to move at all.
In the gym
You're on a deload? Why not make the most it. Use lighter weights and do very slow concentric and eccentric movements. Focus on the muscle that should be working, see how it feels. In exercises like the bench press, see if you can switch from using your chest to using delts as the main muscle for leverage. Do the same with other exercises and you'll notice how much it can really affect how you workout.
At some point you'll be comfortable enough to flex any muscle you like on command and will go to the gym and perform the exercises the way they should. It should definitely change how you workout.
Enjoy!
This post was edited by CMBurns on Mar 31 2011 09:57pm