The strength training that will dramatically improve your gains
today we are going to share with you The strength training that will dramatically improve your gains.
you create a mind-muscle connection when you exercising which is essential to execute movements that carry a tempo or change of speeds. That connection is what helps you activate the areas necessary to make muscle contractions.
We show you this strength training based on learning to use the mind-muscle connection , and once you start using it in a better way it will dramatically improve your gains.
Types of muscle contractions
Have you noticed that while you are training it is more difficult for you to do a controlled lift than a fast one but with more weight?
lifting more weight can be beneficial of course, but being able to control whatever weight you lift at medium speed is much more feasible for good muscle development. Although it is common that it takes time to develop this control over the force you exert when doing a movement, it is a method with which you will learn to dominate your whole body. keep this on your mind
any exercise of any type of movement we are making a contraction with our muscles. this can be done by walking, bending over, or reaching for something, and it is a basic function of our muscles. Yet muscle contractions always occur in one of 3 ways.
- Concentric contraction: when the muscles shorten.
- Eccentric contraction: when the muscles lengthen.
- Isometric contraction: when the muscle contracts and is still active in one position. It means that there is no change in muscle length.
- The concentric contraction is the moment in which you bring the dumbbell to your biceps, which are shortened.
- Then, by lowering the dumbbell and paralyzing the movement just when you go to the middle of the movement, we would be talking about the isometric contraction , since you will hold that position for a while.
- At the end of any movement with the dumbbell fully extended downwards, we would have the eccentric contraction , since once the movement is finished, the biceps are elongated in their natural position.
the right way to use the mind-muscle connection to create strength
The mind-muscle connection involves visualizing the muscle or set of muscles being worked in order to increase muscle activation and blood flow.
Just by thinking about the muscle you are training, you can achieve higher levels of strength and muscle growth. For example, in a study involving 29 participants with their wrists wrapped, and therefore immobile for 1 month, half were instructed to actively visualize flexing their immobile wrist 11 minutes a day, 5 times a week. The wrist muscles in participants who practiced visualization were found to be 2 times stronger than those who did not (Clark, Mahato, Nakazawa, Law, & Thomas, 2014).
A similar study found that targeting muscles, such as quadriceps or pectorals, during training led to increased muscle activation by 20 to 60% (Calatayud et al., 2015).
The reason is that, just by thinking about the muscle we are working on, we can make the brain connect with as many muscle fibers as possible by doing a single contraction or repetition, it is even possible that it also helps you a lot to improve your muscle contractions. Therefore, you are going to promote an increase in strength due to its activity.
In this way, your muscles will develop better while you are training and you can progress to use higher weights. After understanding and being able to apply this, your workouts will take a complete turn.
How to improve the mind-muscle connection
Doing this may seem easy since if you imagine that you are using your biceps and try to contract them, it will be easy. However, there are muscle groups that making connections with can be challenging.
There is a workable solution to facilitate this method. To begin with, we would need to touch the muscle that we want to activate to increase the level of activation or isolation. For this, you can ask a gym buddy for help, or your coach. All you need is to touch the area you want to target, such as placing two fingers on your upper chest while doing a bench press to focus on that area and activate it more efficiently.
Another way to improve your mind-muscle connection is to pause at the top or in the middle of each rep, for a second or two, so you can squeeze the muscle you are working on. For example, when doing a military press, when you reach the top and fully extend your arms, take a second or two to squeeze your shoulders and lats before lowering the bar.
Tempo-based eccentric and isometric exercises are also a great way to improve your mind-muscle connection. If you incorporate them into your routine, surely in a while you will become a genius controlling the weights with which it was previously difficult for you to perform the exercises.
conclusion
This type of training can be adapted for any of the desired results, for the creation of strength and control, or for the increase of muscle mass. It all depends on your goal and the training you are taking.
We remind you that this is only a form of training. since you need to have strong and developed muscles, you can apply this technique to use them more actively and have more control over the strength of your entire body. You will notice the changes as you start to use it.