Master the Mind-Muscle Connection to Build More Muscle

It’s not how much weight you lift, but how you lift the weight.

Do you want to build muscle? Focus on feeling the contraction and stretch of your target muscle.

A mind-muscle connection helps increase the activation of a target muscle during an exercise. Increased activation of a muscle group means it’s more likely to grow.

In this article, I explore why using a mind-muscle connection during resistance training will help build bigger muscles. I’ll also discuss several tips that you can use to improve your mind-muscle connection in the gym.

What is the Mind-Muscle Connection?

A conscious and deliberate muscle contraction, bodybuilders have long known the secrets of developing a “mind-muscle connection” to maximising muscle growth.

Also known as an attentional focus, research shows that concentrating on the physical activity that we're doing will make us better at it.

Not rocket science, is it?

In the case of athletic performance, an external focus on the activity itself will make the best improvements. However, when it comes to building muscle, an internal focus of attention is most beneficial.

“An internal focus, referred to as a “mind-muscle connection” in bodybuilding circles, should be adopted when the goal is to maximize muscle development.” — Schoenfeld et al., 2018

With an internal focus, we concentrate on the specifics of our bodily movements when performing an activity. For exercises during a workout, we concentrate on the targeted muscle group to “connect” our brain with these muscle fibres.

“This internally focused strategy involves visualizing the target muscle and consciously directing neural drive to the muscle during exercise performance.” — Schoenfeld & Contreras, 2016

What are the benefits of a mind-muscle connection in the gym?

By perfecting the mind-muscle connection in the gym, we maximise muscle activation and accordingly, increase our potential to build muscle.

Three primary mechanisms of hypertrophy (building muscle) are increased with internal focus: mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage.

“Bodybuilders generally train with moderate loads and fairly short rest intervals that induce high amounts of metabolic stress.” — Schoenfield, 2010

Muscle damage is obvious; we stress our muscle fibres in the gym to the point they’re forced to adapt, repair, and grow stronger.

Mechanical tension is the force created by a muscle contracting against a load. Tension is produced by both force generation and the stretch; or, the concentric and eccentric phases, which we’ll get to shortly.

To maximise mechanical tension, we lift a heavy weight in a controlled manner, going through a full range of motion.

Metabolic stress is caused by fatiguing the muscle, by training it near failure at high intensity. Technically, there is an accumulation of metabolites in the targeted muscle cells/fibres.

A common sign of metabolic stress is “the pump”. The pump is when our muscles feel firm and look enlarged during a workout, filled with blood and veins popping out.

The pump is achieved through doing sets of exercises in the medium to high rep ranges (8–20 reps), with minimal rest periods (30–60 seconds).

Another positive benefit of the pump is that for that hour or two, you look way more muscular than usual! As well as looking more vascular, the worked muscles also look slightly bigger and fuller. Perfect for a selfie.

How to achieve a mind-muscle connection

There are a few practical tips you can take away to improve your mind-muscle connection in the gym and build more muscle.

Get in the zone! — Minimise your distractions. Music really helps me to zone into my lifts.

Feel the exercise — Connect with your muscles by focusing your attention on the muscles required to do the exercise. Try to consciously feel the muscle work through a full range of motion and squeeze the muscle at the peak of the contraction.

Feel the contraction — There are two sections to lift: the eccentric phase and the concentric phase. Eccentric and concentric contractions are both important to building muscle.

The concentric is when the muscle contracts and the eccentric portion happens when the muscle lengthens. For example, for the bench press, the eccentric is the lowering phase and the concentric is when you power the bar up.

Many people neglect the eccentric portion of the lift, letting momentum or gravity bring the weight back down to the starting position. However, the eccentric phase is just as important to building muscle.

“Although concentric and isometric contractions have been shown to produce a hypertrophic response, a majority of studies seem to show that eccentric actions have the greatest effect on muscle development .” — Schoenfeld et al., 2018

Slower reps — Lower the tempo of your exercise through the eccentric portion to maximise its effectiveness, increasing time under tension.

The tempo of the concentric portion should be performed at moderate to fast speeds (1–3 seconds), and the eccentric at slightly slower speeds (2–4 seconds).

Good form — Good form is key to doing any exercise. Firstly, because you’re doing it safely and minimising injury risk. Secondly, you put your muscles through a full range of motion for maximum effectiveness of the exercise.

Maximise time under tension — If your goal is to build muscle, each set should last for 30–60 seconds.

For example, 12 reps of bicep curls would last 48 seconds using a tempo of 1 second for the concentric phase and 3 seconds for the eccentric phase. You can also pause each rep during the contraction to add more time under tension.

Use lighter weights — A full range of motion and correct technique is imperative to effectively stimulate a muscle group. Research indicates that the effectiveness of an internal focus is reduced by using heavier weights.

So, to build muscle, we don’t try to push as much weight as possible, compromising our form.

Try not to always look at yourself in the mirror — I know, you want to make sure your technique is on point. But, once you’re experienced doing an exercise, muscle memory remembers how to do it. So, instead of looking at yourself, try concentrating on how the exercise feels. You’ll receive biological feedback on your form by feeling what muscles it is working.

When not to use mind-muscle connection

As I mentioned earlier in the article, the flip side to an internal focus is an external focus. An external focus is how your body relates to the environment and equipment to complete the activity.

When training for strength or power, we should use an external focus such as concentrating on how the weight is going to move and performing the movement correctly and efficiently.

“Adopting an internal attentional focus with very heavy loads (above 85–90% of 1RM) is unnecessary because it might limit force production without enhancing muscle activation .” — Schoenfeld & Contreras, 2016

Concluding Thoughts

In this article, we’ve explored the concept of a mind-muscle connection in the gym.

Instead of focusing on lifting the maximum amount of weight, we instead focus on really concentrating on the muscle group we’re working to create tension in the target muscle.

By focusing on using specific muscles, the brain signals to recruit and activate more muscle fibres and maximise its growth potential.

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed the read, you might be interested in this article debunking five common fitness myths.

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