Let me quickly reiterate what the "mind-to-muscle connection" actually is, then I will follow up with three actionable hacks to improve it rapidly!
"Kris, what is the Mind-to-Muscle Connection?"
Thank you for asking! This is a phrase used to describe the relationship between your brain, the working muscle and the network of nerves (central nervous system) which marry them together. The stronger this relationship, the greater your potential to recruit muscle fibers is - therefore it is essential for maximizing muscle growth!
Here are three ways to boost the "mind-to-muscle connection."
1) Isometric Pause/Hold Reps
This is a "must do" hack for improved CNS connectivity - hold and pause for 3 seconds at the isometric contraction, when doing an exercise. Let's take the bicep curl for example - at the point of peak contraction, pause and hold. Squeeze the muscle hard at this point as well, to further enhance the connection!
2) Higher Reps
Higher repetitions give you the opportunity to focus more on isolation of the muscle because there is less reliance on stabilization, as there would be with heavier loads used for lower rep sets. As a result, your primary focus can be on using slow rep tempo to really build tension within the muscle, thus boosting the CNS connection.
3) Intra-Workout Squeezing
Between working sets deploy isotension squeezes on the trained muscle for 20 seconds - this just augments the impact of your working set on the CNS.
Get to work and start using these for optimized results!