Mind to muscle (MTM) connection is an age-old method within the muscle building game, forever praised by the industries best (think Schwarzenegger, The Rock, Stallone & alike). But it can be used by even us mere mortals to aid muscle building & hypertrophy through better contraction of the muscles we're looking to stimulate. But to avoid this becoming a pure science article, I'm going to split it up into:
What it is
How it works
The benefits
How to achieve it
What is MTM:
Put simply, mind to muscle connection is just as it sounds, the ability to focus on & emphasise the tension or contraction of a specific muscle group or body area consciously & deliberately. It relies on the neuromuscular junction within the brain learning to decide which specific muscles are to be used in an exercise.
For example ensuring the pectorals (chest) are the primary muscle group contracting in a bench press, instead of the triceps & front delts. This offers a much more efficiency in each exercise by recruiting specific muscle & brain fibres.
How does MTM work:
To get our head around this we need to understand the two types of MTM, also known as focussed attention. They are internal attention & external attention.
External meaning focussing on the environment to ensure correct muscles are being engaged, for example pushing the floor away in a press-up.
Internal is the more common idea of MTM, in which you consciously follow the areas of the body you're aiming to work, such as focussing on the stretch/squeeze of the hamstrings in an RDL.
It's worth noting that both methods are helpful so give both a go! By shifting the focus to specific muscles, we can get much more efficiency from those muscles, to ensure we get bang for our buck on every rep. This leads to greater muscle load, in the right areas, & therefore (with correct recovery) higher levels of hypertrophy.
Our current understanding is that external attention tends to be more effective in lower body muscle groups, whereas internal attention tends to be more effective in upper body muscle groups, however research is ongoing & we are yet to combine research into a meta-analysis for more definite results.
The benefits of MTM:
European Sports Science Journal research in 2018 reiterated the following benefits of MTM:
Increased muscle activity in lifting done between 20-70% of participants 1RM (maximum weight for 1 rep)
Increased muscle growth rate (provided recovery & programming is in check)
Attention & focus in workouts, also leading to b etter understanding of your body & how to use it functionally
Ability to shift more weight &/or get extra reps
Increase of over 20% in lower body strength (external attention), & over 15% in upper body strength (internal attention)
2-7% increase in muscle size with the use of MTM & i ncreased blood-flow to muscles
How to implement MTM:
So what does all this mean for YOU? Well if you goal is to gain muscle strength, size or both, you can take advantage of the benefits of MTM training using the following tips:
Focus on contracting the muscles themselves, not the idea of the weights reaching the top of the movement.
Note that MTM tends to be easier in isolation lifts (where only one joint is moving) due to less muscles being used.
However MTM in all its forms actually helps even more with compound lifts (multiple joints) with practice.
Pause/slow down at the top, bottom or lowering phase of lifts to ensure maximal MTM connection.
MTM has the best results for strength work, less so for cardio & power work.
Add in one cue at a time, don't overload your brain with lots of different focus areas.
The key idea to keep in your head is to always be actively lifting weight & contracting your muscles, rather than being passive to the process.
Practice! Just like meditation, this is a mental skill which you will get better at with practice.
Get in touch if you'd like to understand more about mastering your fitness, nutrition & wellbeing. We'd love to help!
See you soon.
Elliot Hutchinson // 30.06.2024
© 2024 The Coaching Collective
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