Is Mind-To-Muscle Connection The Missing Link For You?

If You Have Been Going Through The Motions In The Weights Room And Aren’t Seeing Any Noticeable Progress, Maybe ‘Mind To Muscle’ Connection Could Be The Key.

- Amelia Ricci

A few years ago, my results from weight training stalled and I couldn’t work out why. I would often train with my PT clients out of hours, and counted this as my workout. What I didn’t realise is that I had stopped giving myself focused training sessions. I then understood how important it is to stay connected to my mind when working out, and to consider the specific exercises and overload techniques that my own body needed each workout.

After completing a few solo training sessions, I was incredibly sore and must have inadvertently ‘dropped the ball’ with my training technique, whilst hitting the weights room with friends. What I had been doing was focusing so much on my friend and reminding them to connect their mind to muscle, I didn’t have my mind on my own workout.

I had to remind myself of the science behind weight training: the central nervous system and the recruitment of muscle fibres during an exercise is something that starts in the brain. The brain controls the movements of skeletal muscles via specialised nerves. In fact the combination of the nervous system and muscles, working together to permit movement, is known as the neuromuscular system.1

Once I started implementing Mind-to-Muscle Connection (MMC) techniques into my workouts again, I couldn’t believe the difference it made. I had always understood the concept of ‘mind-to-muscle connection’ but wanted to research and understand more about the science behind it.

Research shows that with focused strength training, we can create changes within our nervous system that allow us to more fully activate and coordinate all relevant muscles.2 This has the effect of greater load on the muscle which results in better strength, size and shape of our muscles.