Engage your muscles

Hey Hubermanner, can you look at your left quadricep for a sec?

I know it’s it’s weird, but follow with me. Flex your left quadricep.

Great. That’s the ‘Mind-Muscle’ connection.

Let’s stamp this tool down before moving to the next one. When you actively think about flexing a muscle, you speed up growth, technique, and power.

This happens through neuroplasticity. From your childhood, some of your muscles made less neural connections to the brain. So they’re much harder to engage. And when that happens, your body recruits other muscles for an exercise. But if you don’t reverse this, that muscle or technique doesn’t develop.

Maybe you know this from having an injury that doesn’t go away or a lift you can’t progress in.

If you really struggle with this, like a muscle group or injury just can’t grow or adjust, engage the muscle and try to put a finger on the weak point while doing a move. This sends a signal to your brain about where it should activate.

Examples: when you’re attempting a pullup, ask someone to touch the lat. If you want to have a wider chest or better deadlifts, close your eyes and put an isolated attention bubble on the place you want to develop. Even when you’re running, imagine the ball of the foot striking the ground.

Even if you don’t really get stronger or faster in the moment, it’s the thought in your brain that counts.

So I really hope you try this out in the next workout. And if you say you will but then don’t, it’s okay... It’s the thought that counts ;)

Engage your muscles