What Is the “Mind-Muscle Connection?”
The mind-muscle connection, or “mind-to-muscle connection,” refers to the idea that by intensely focusing on a muscle as you train it, you can increase its activation and subsequent growth.For example, proponents of the mind-muscle connection (bodybuilders, typically) believe that if you fix your attention on your biceps as you perform the dumbbell curl—feeling it stretch as you lower the weight and “squeezing” it as you lift—you’ll gain more biceps muscle and strength than if you went through the motion passively.
Not everyone believes the mind-muscle connection is necessary, though.
Evidence-based fitness experts generally argue that focusing on a muscle does nothing to boost strength and size gain if you train through a full range of motion with sufficiently heavy weights since doing so requires your muscles to fully contribute to lifting the weight, whether you focus on them or not.
Is the Mind-Muscle Connection Important?
In a sports context, there are two types of “attentional focus:” internal and external.Internal focus directs your attention toward what you’re doing with your body as you move (e.g., thinking about contracting your quads while squatting). This is the type of focus associated with the mind-muscle connection.
External focus directs your attention toward how your movements impact your environment (e.g., imagining pushing the floor away while deadlifting).
A wealth of research shows that external focus is superior to internal focus for boosting performance in almost every sport, including weightlifting.
For example, in a review published in the journal Sport (Basel, Switzerland), researchers found that focusing externally while weightlifting increases your strength on exercises like the squat, deadlift, and rack pull.
Furthermore, weightlifters who use external “cues” (mantras that help you focus externally) typically gain more strength over time than those who don’t. And since lifting heavy weights and getting stronger over time is paramount for building muscle, external cues likely aid muscle growth more than internal cues, too.
In other words, keenly focusing on the muscles you’re training is less important for gaining muscle and strength than thinking about how your body affects your environment as you perform an exercise. The opposite of what bodybuilders preach, basically.
Does this mean that internal focus is always a bad idea?
Not necessarily—some studies suggest harnessing a mind-to-muscle connection increases muscle activation in the target muscle. And while increased activation isn’t the best proxy for gauging growth, it may spur growth in some scenarios (more on the specifics soon).
With that in mind, here’s how I recommend you train to maximize muscle activation, recruitment, and gains.
