The Mind-Muscle Connection

Next to safety, the most important aspect of weight training is arguably the Mind-Muscle Connection. This is what is going to increase the efficiency of your workouts, spark muscle hypertrophy, and for some, ensure that they are not completely spinning their wheels in the gym.
Allow me to elaborate, many gym goers approach a bench with one goal in mind, to move the heaviest amount of weight they can as many times as they can. Are these exercise enthusiasts ego driven? Perhaps, but also likely is that they are ignorant on the matter. And that is OK provided they aren't doing something that will result in someone getting hurt. I like to think that I will never stop looking for knew things to learn, that I will never assume that I have it all figured out. What I have come to learn during my years spent in the gym, is that it is NOT about how much weight you are moving. It is true however that one can mention arguments about total work done on a muscle and time under tension and all of that. All of which is valid, but none of which makes any bit of difference if you are not using the proper muscles and maximally contracting them. Think about it, what causes your muscles to grow? Is it the fact that there is a mass that is moving up and down? Of course not, it is the fact that your muscle, while acting on that mass which is moving up and down, are contracting. So why would you focus on the movement of that mass during your workout instead of the contraction of your muscle?
This is where the Mind-Muscle Connection comes into play. For every exercise you preform, there are primary muscles that are intended to perform the desired action and secondary muscles that are intended to act in support to the primary ones. When a lifter is overly concerned with getting that weight up at all costs and the primary muscles are incapable of doing this, it is entirely possible for the lifter to recruit force from other muscles by twisting the body in unsafe ways to achieve the completed concentric movement. This is a waste of time, not to mention potentially dangerous. Now you are not even working the intended muscles anymore, and over time this can result in an imbalance in muscle symmetry, and eventually a complete disconnect of the muscle from the conscious control of the brain. I know individuals who, even though they have muscle that is of respectable size, can not even control it well enough to flex it. The problem being, that when it comes time to do an exercise that calls on that muscle, they will not be able to effectively contract it and work it properly, resulting in an inefficiency in the ability to attain muscle hypertrophy and therefor progress.
So how do you ensure that you are getting maximal muscle contraction during an exercise. The answer is a simple one, the application of the answer is the difficult part. Most simply stated, one must focus on using the muscle intended to be worked while performing the concentric and eccentric portions on the exercise. Making the conscious effort to imagine that muscle flexing and contracting during the movement will help you in making the connection between the nerves and the muscles. But often times more effort it required to achieve this connection initially. One technique that I have found useful is to preform exceptionally slow repetitions. An example of this would be to perform a bench press where you take a full 5 secs to push the weight to the top of the movement (concentric portion of the exercise) and pause there. While you are at the top of the movement you squeeze the chest muscles for about 2-3 seconds (imagine you are flexing them), and then lower the weight (eccentric portion of the exercise) at the same 5 sec rate you pushed up with. Perform 15-20 reps in this fashion, and do about 3 sets of this. This is a great way to start your workout because it will do two things for you. First, it will serve to get you in touch with that muscle, so that while performing the remainder of your workout you will have a higher likely hood of achieving maximal muscle contraction. And Second, it will "pre-fatigue" the muscle so that during the remainder of your workout you are more likely to reach failure and spark muscle hypertrophy.
There are other ways to attain this connection, having proper form will aid in muscle isolation, such as keeping your shoulders back and chest out during chest pressing movements. But for the most part the simplest thing you can do to make that Mind-Muscle connection is to reduce the weight and perform the reps slowly so that you can focus on the muscle. You might be surprised how effective just imagining the motion can be, but it works too. Once you have that down, then start stacking on the weight...because everyone wants to lift heavy things, but don't you want to look like you can too?!