What is the mind-muscle connection and what are the benefits?
More muscle growth through the powerful mind-muscle connection!
The term 'mind-muscle connection' is becoming increasingly well-known in the fitness world and is actually an indispensable part. Perhaps you have heard of it yourself or are you now wondering 'how does that work?' or 'what exactly is it?'. We will explain that clearly below!
What is the mind-muscle connection?
With the mind-muscle connection you think specifically about the muscle you are currently training during the exercise. For example, if you do a bicep curl, you ensure that your mental focus is on your bicep. As a result, you are consciously controlling and activating your muscles during training. This ultimately ensures that you can push your muscles to the limit and achieve maximum muscle growth.
If you want to tighten your muscles, your brain must first send a signal to that muscle. This causes your muscle to contract (extra).
What are the advantages?
- More results with strength training
When you focus on the relevant muscle growth during an exercise, you can make your muscles work more and you will see results faster. For example: During pull-ups, focus on your back and not so much on your arm muscles, because your back muscles have to do most of the work during pull-ups.
- Less chance of injuries
It is important to have a good mind-muscle connection so that you can trust how your muscles are working. This improves your coordination and allows you to adopt the correct posture more quickly during an exercise.
- mindfulness
When you are actively working on the mind-muscle connection in your body during training, you have a clear focus and you do not easily get distracted. You are very busy feeling your muscles during the exercises and this mentally puts you in a mindfulness state. This in turn ensures that you live in the now and have a healthy conscious experience while exercising.
How do you apply the mind-muscle connection?
- Peak contraction > This means that if you are doing Hip Thrusts, for example, you hold the position for a few seconds when you are upstairs so that you put extra tension on your muscles and really feel the muscle.
- Static exercises > When you perform a static exercise, you have to stay in good posture for a longer period of time. Such an exercise is very good for training the mind-muscle connection.
- Balance exercises > With balance exercises you are consciously working with your body to keep balance, which also improves your mind-muscle connection.
- Isolation exercises > These are exercises in which you train only one muscle, such as with a bicep curl. Because you perform an isolation exercise, you can fully concentrate on that muscle and the mind-muscle connection is improved.
In addition to focusing on the mind-muscle connection, it's important to get the right amount of protein when you've trained. Discover our Vegan protein powder with various superfoods , so that you benefit from high-quality proteins and the benefits of superfoods.
