many bodybuilders have advocated using the mind muscle connection for maximizing muscle growth the mind muscle connection for those who don't know is aiming to consciously squeeze and maximally activate a particular muscle during an exercise can using this technique help you build more muscle there are two direct papers we can use to help us answer this question this first study by counts and colleagues technically did not aim to determine if the mind muscle connection helped build more muscle rather it gives us an insight into whether squeezing and maximally contracting a muscle produces hypertrophy which is the
basis of the mind muscle connection 13 untrained individuals had one arm assigned to a no-load condition and their other arm assigned to a high load condition participants trained both arms three times per week for six weeks with the arm that was assigned to the no-load condition they performed a biceps curl with no actual weight they aim to squeeze and maximally contract the biceps throughout the curling movement they did this for 4 sets of 20 reps with 30 seconds of rest between sets with the opposite arm assigned to the high load condition they performed a dumbbell
biceps curl with seventy percent of their one rep max they did this for four sets of eight to twelve reps with 90 seconds of rest between sets thickness of the biceps was measured at three regions roughly fifty percent sixty percent and seventy percent of the upper arm length at all three regions of the biceps increases in thickness were similar between the two conditions in other words bicep curls with no load but trying to squeeze and maximally activate the biceps throughout the curling motion resulted in similar gains to regular dumbbell curls which is extremely interesting again
this study didn't explicitly test the mind muscle connection but what this study does suggest is that squeezing and aiming to maximally activate a muscle which is the basis of the mind muscle connection can result in significant growth the question now becomes whether aiming to do this during a loaded exercise can help build more muscle this is where the second paper by schoenfeld and colleagues comes in 27 untrained men were split into an internal focus group or an external focus group both groups train the standing biceps curl and leg extension for four sets of eight to
twelve reps with each set taken to failure three times per week for 10 weeks the internal focus group on each rep was told to focus on squeezing the targeted muscle this was the biceps for the standing biceps curl and the quadriceps for the leg extension the external focus group was told to focus on getting the way up on each rep for both exercises thickness of the elbow flexors which would have included the biceps bracha and brachialis rectus femoris and vastus lateralis were measured before and after the 10 weeks of both groups the internal focus group
experienced significantly greater increases in elbow flexor thickness compared to the external focus group but increases in thickness for the rectus femoris and vastus lateralis was similar between both groups so the mind muscle connection did seem to help build more muscle for the elbow flexors but not for the quadriceps this is intriguing why might the mind muscle connection not benefit the quads the researchers noted that several participants found it easier to focus on the biceps compared to the quadriceps in normal life the upper body is typically involved in finer motor tasks like writing whereas the lower
body is primarily involved in larger tasks like walking this could explain why individuals are better able to control and activate their biceps but not their quadriceps remember the participants in this study were untrained with training experience developing a mind muscle connection with the quadriceps may be possible this in turn may be able to result in greater growth of course i am just guessing and future research would be required to validate this idea so from the count study but mainly the schoenfeld study there is evidence that the mind muscle connection can help build more muscle but
it's also important to consider the context of these studies both studies use single joint exercises single joint exercises may be the most practical and easiest type of movement to apply the mind muscle connection to the mind muscle connection could still work with multi-joint exercises but probably with the use of lighter loads a paper by kala tuya and colleagues demonstrates this they found that focusing on the chest during bench pressures with 20 percent 40 percent and 60 percent warning max did increase chest electrical activity measured by electromyography compared to not using the mind muscle connection this
same logic also applied to focusing on the triceps but when subjects used eighty percent one rep max on the bench press the mind muscle connection did not increase electrical activity for either the chest or triceps electromyography does come with its limitations and inferring long-term adaptations from emg data can be problematic but regardless i feel this study is useful as the results are logical and probably quite intuitive when using heavy loads it would simply be more difficult to focus on a particular muscle as much of your attention would be directed towards just moving the load [Music]
but with lighter loads it would be much easier to direct your attention to a particular muscle another important thing worth mentioning here is that given lighter loads are likely better for using the mind muscle connection strength development will likely be less although many people of course want to build substantial muscle many people do as well want to get strong on some exercises mainly multi-joint exercises for example having a strong bench press squat or deadlift is a goal for many people if this applies to you for the most part it's probably best to avoid using the
mind muscle connection on any movements you want to maximize strength with and rather just focus on using relatively heavy loads to conclude with single joint upper body exercises such as bicep curls there is direct evidence that using the mind muscle connection can help build more muscle with single joint lower body exercises you may wish to try and develop a mind muscle connection with your lower body this may help build more muscle with the upper and lower body multi-joint exercises the mind muscle connection could work with lighter loads so you may wish to experiment with this
[Music] [Music] you
