The Mind-Muscle Connection: Gaining Control Over Your Body and Workout Routines

by admin on February 26, 2012

[The body is only an extension of the mind - and without the mind, it is only a shell.]

When I first started working out, I was surprised how I would always feel a workout in a completely different place than I was supposed to. I would try to work my chest with a bench press and feel it almost exclusively in my shoulders. Or I would feel leg lifts done for my abs on my legs and not my abs.

I found this incredibly discouraging. I was convinced that either every workout book, personal trainer and the entire internet was playing some kind of practical joke on me, or something was really wrong with my body. That was until I found out about something that would completely change how I approached working out…

Why You Need to Know About the Mind Muscle Connection…

 

The mind muscle connection is probably the most overlooked and important concept in fitness today. (Not to say that using bodybuilding supplements  (sponsored)  if you want to gain muscle is a bad idea.) The idea behind it is that your mind and body is linked, and the only way to properly stimulate a muscle group is by using your mind to target it. If you are not concentrating on flexing the muscle group you’re trying to target while completing an exercise – then there are good chances that you’re going to allow other muscles to over-compensate in the exercise and you’ll get a lot less out of it.

This is what happened to me when I first started working out, and it’s incredibly common for beginners who aren’t aware of this to get confused in the beginning when it comes to certain exercises. If you have a weak muscle group and you haven’t made a good mental connection with it. And then you go on and try to target it with a certain exercise – even if you have perfect form it’s very likely that your other muscles will take over in the exercise. Which is something that you don’t want.

How to Build the Mind-Muscle Connection

In order to build a proper mind muscle connection – you’re going to want to do isometric exercises that target the specific muscle group you’re trying to improve. For example, to start feeling your chest muscle raise your elbows and push your hands against each other while trying to flex your chest. For your abs, do a plank while feeling your ab muscles.

Using Your Mind to Strengthen Your Body…

There are a lot of tricks you can use to help strengthen your body and activate your muscles when working out. For instance, imagining that you’re trying to reach land when doing the rowing machine or catch a crook when doing sprints are good ways to motivate yourself to work harder. Sometimes a little imagination is all we need to give ourself that extra push.

And remember – one of the most important things in reaching your goals is workout routines.

Note: What do you think? Does our mind play a large influence on the workings of our body?

 

 

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A Beginner’s Guide to Hypertrophy: 5 Steps to Success

by admin on February 23, 2012

This guest post was written by Michael from Made4Fighters – the leading online supplier of MMA Gear.

Over the past few years the gym has gradually started to dominate more and more of my life. I have immersed myself in bodybuilding and it has become my primary interests.

It feels like there’s always somebody new asking me the very question that isn’t easily answered: what is the key behind increasing muscle size?

Hypertrophy is a vital ingredient to the nature of a bodybuilder, and is something that isn’t easily done without sheer dedication and a good insight into its best practice.

There are 5 aspects to hypertrophy that all beginners would work to if they are to be successful. These are:

  •  Symmetry – Ensuring exercise is measured equally.
  • Diet – Diet is KEY and the most important addition to a training programme (80% in fact)
  • Technique – Your form and lifting techniques are vital
  • Recovery – Allowing the body to heal
  • Routine – The layout of your workout / weekly routine

1.     Symmetry

Symmetry to a bodybuilder is extremely important. Without having a perfect line of symmetry, vital points are lost in competition. Having one pec larger than the other, or one shoulder broader than the other isn’t a comforting thought, but there are ways we can work our body to ensure that these are easily avoided.

Personally, I believe the best way to prevent odd lines of symmetry are to make sure that weight is equally spread when using a barbell, ensuring your grip is widely placed an equal distance apart. A wonky stance or grip can add more weight (noticeably or un-noticeably) to one side of the body.

A key example of this can be a military press of wide-grip barbell curl – both easily carried out with incorrect grips and cause incorrect muscle growth.

Most bars have indentations or breaks in the grip showing the best position to grip the bar. When gaining the size, you need to gain the symmetry, a key to holding and constructing upon an excellent shape.

2.     Diet

I can’t stress enough how important the diet is to a body builder. Taking on the correct nutrition can be a gigantic challenge if you don’t know where to start.

As most of you know, protein plays one of the most important rolls in body growth and muscle recovery, so be sure to keep a healthy intake of protein (1g per pound of BODYWEIGHT).

This can be found in white and red meats, available in shakes and found also in Soya (There are more sources, don’t worry! Just to name a few..).

Healthy fats are also a key to size; taking on a good amount of mono-saturates and healthy fats found in seeds, nuts, meats and cottage cheese – this is a common factor to what we know as bulking.

These along with a healthy intake of Carbohydrates and Fibres pushing a good calorie count can add healthy size and bulk to help transform your body into a machine for muscle growth.

There is an excellent article I discovered some short time ago with an excellent beginners guide and an insight to a correct nutrition, you can read it here. (Simply Shredded contains a lot of brilliant information and reads so be sure to take some time and have a look!)

3.     Technique

Keeping a good form can be difficult, to gain a good form can be the general case of trial and error – we’ve all been there.

When I started lifting back in college, I had no clue. Only gradually through practise could I achieve a half decent form where I wasn’t doing any damage to my body.

My first tip on this would be to always ensure that your feet are shoulder width apart to keep a healthy posture throughout.

As I mentioned before in the symmetry section, equal grips are also vital in technique. This lays the foundation for maintaining a good balance when doing the more compound, full body movements such as squats, deadlifts and the military press.

With most of the weight being focused on in these 3 movements, there are a number of things to take on board (particularly with them being 3 of the greatest mass builders).

Your back must always be kept straight with your knees bent and your glutes forced backwards; this keeps excellent form throughout each movement guaranteeing you full benefit from the exercise, prevents any injuries and keeps the weight spread equally across the lower body to keep you from falling over.

Maintaining these movements can keep equal growth throughout.

4.     Recovery

Allowing your body to heal will give you quicker results. The saying “too much of any good thing, is a bad thing” is very apt here!

Overtraining can cause mass fatigue in your muscles and, if anything, cause you to lose size, purely because you begin burning muscle if you push too much.

Make sure you have at least 1-2 complete rest days a week with a healthy intake of food and your vital nutrition – so your proteins, carbs, fats etc. As well as this, a healthy amount of sleep and rest makes a huge impact.

Sleep is so important. We all know that it’s better to exercise and lift feeling fresh, awake and energetic as opposed to crawling through the front door in the gym and struggling on regular weights using an improper form. A good routine easily maps this out.

5.     Routine

Last but not least, a routine. Routines should be mapped out around you as an individual dependent upon your goals.

Through experience, I’ve found it easier to train certain muscle groups on certain days through a split routine, something structured around this:

  • Day 1: Upper Body Power
  • Day 2: Lower Body Power
  • Day 3: Rest
  • Day 4: Back and Shoulders Hypertrophy
  • Day 5: Lower Body Hypertrophy
  • Day 6: Chest and Arms Hypertrophy
  • Day 7: Rest

But that’s just me. Be sure to include those rest days and make sure that you’re not overtraining certain muscle groups.

Happy Training!

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Home Fitness Routines: Supplemental Assistance

by admin on November 2, 2011

Stay-at-home parents, people without active gym memberships, and anyone squeezed for extra time can really take advantage of home fitness routines in order to stay active and healthy.  Though most houses and apartments aren’t outfitted with all of the fitness equipment commonly available at local gyms, there are a number of exercises you can do to keep yourself in shape without all the pricey extras.  Even though many exercises can be performed and mastered without the use of fitness equipment, an avid home exerciser will still need a few supplemental aids to help with his or her routine.  Below, we’ll go over a few pieces of fitness equipment one should keep at home for those small periods when exercise is possible between work, meals, school, and sleep.

Jump Rope

If you don’t have a treadmill, stationary bike, or elliptical machine at home, it can be hard to keep up with your personal aerobic fitness.  Weight loss and maintenance often depends on aerobic exercise and raised heart rates, so unless you plan on doing jumping jacks or running in place all day, you’ll want something to help you with your aerobics.  A jump rope is the perfect accessory for home fitness, as it’s cheap, easy to store just about anywhere, and is versatile in its uses.  You can easily keep track of your day-to-day changes in endurance as well by counting your number of jumps.

Exercise Ball

Though not as easily hidden from view as a jump rope, an exercise ball is still readily stored and cheap to purchase.  Using an exercise ball, one can work on several abdominal exercises for core strengthening, thanks primarily to the build of the ball and the optimal amount of give it provides.  If you do a variety of stretches as well, a ball can be a perfect tool for accomplishing more difficult ones.  So if you want a tight abdominal region or just need some stretching assistance, exercise balls are the way to go.

Free Weights

So most people won’t be able to fit an entire weight bench in their homes, but keeping a few free weights in the closet or under the bed is easy enough for most people to manage.  Free weights are versatile, and you can use them for a wide variety of arm and chest muscle building.  You’ll want to get ones with different weights to them, so that you’ll be able to perform various exercises at optimal weight resistance.  Just be sure not to drop one on your toes!

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