What is the mind-muscle connection?
It is a connection that allows you to mentally control your muscles on purpose.
By performing a weight-bearing exercise, you can mentally control your target muscle during each rep. The goal is to achieve a strong contraction within the target muscle.
It also allows you to individually control individual muscles and different parts of the body, that is, move your toes separately. With a good connection between the mind and the muscles, you are aware of what each part of your body does. You are connected to it. It plays an important role in coordination.
With a good connection between the mind and the muscles, you can make your muscles work during a workout without any weight. You can feel your muscles work.
What are the benefits of the mind-muscle connection?
- Fewer injuries
- Better coordination
- Know what your body does
- More effective workouts
- More in touch with your body and aware of how it feels
- Efficient use of muscles in daily activities.
The benefits are truly endless. Creating a connection between the mind and the muscles puts you in contact with your body. This, in turn, helps reconnect your mind, body, and soul and makes you more aware of how your thoughts affect your body.
While the mind-muscle connection is extremely beneficial for strengthening our muscles, the connection with our body as we age is important to avoid body stiffness. It can go up without you knowing. If you’re connected to your body, you can stay in control and stay fit longer.
It can also help improve balance and coordination.
Can you develop a connection between the mind and the muscles?
It definitely can. It can take up to 45 days to retrain the brain and develop new neural pathways. Training should take place almost every day.
However, it is important to give your brain a break for a day or two to allow the new information to settle. Remember that you need a regular workout, just like your muscles.
How can I train my brain to have a connection between the mind and the muscles?
A great way to start is with a bicep curl.
Stand tall and tuck one of your elbows into your waist and assume the starting position of a bicep curl. Imagine that you are holding a weight. Don’t use weights. It is important to start without weights.
Place your opposite hand on your biceps. Look at your biceps and think about your biceps. Put your mind on your biceps.
Begin doing bicep curls very slowly. Feel how your muscle works. Think about how your muscle is working.
As you slowly continue to do a bicep curl, try to make your muscle contract a little harder. Really connect with your biceps muscle and keep it in control.
Once you’ve worked one side for a while, repeat on the other side.
Once you have the idea, try wiggling your toes separately. Sit with your foot up and look at your toes. Put your mind on your toes.
Try moving the big toe toward you with the other toes moving away. Once you have it, try alternating the big toe back and forth with the other toes. Repeat with the other foot.
The important thing is that you don’t give up. You probably won’t feel anything for the first few weeks, but keep practicing with the same concentration throughout. One day you will just ‘get’ it and then you can call it when you need it.
When you start to get the idea, try it out with every muscle in your body. What you are essentially doing is putting your mind on your muscles and controlling them.
Once you’ve established your mind-muscle connection, you can add light weights to your mental workout. It is important not to go too fast using weights that are too heavy. The form is everything.
A good connection between the mind and the muscles will help you get more out of the life of your age.