The Mind-Muscle Connection

Joe Weider, along with his brother Ben, are considered the founding fathers of bodybuilding.  Together they founded the International Federation of Bodybuilders and created competitions like the Mr Olympia, Ms. Olympia and Master’s Olympia.  He is the publisher of several bodybuilding and fitness-related magazines, most notably Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Men’s Fitness and Shape, and is the manufacturer of a line of fitness equipment and fitness supplements.  But perhaps the most important of his contributions to the health and fitness industry is his series of training methods collected over many years, which became widely known as the Weider Principles.

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Down this road, in a gym far away,

A young man was heard to say,

“ No matter what I do, my legs won’t grow.”

He tried leg extensions, leg curls, and leg presses, too.

Trying to cheat, these sissy squats he’d do.

From the corner of the gym where the big men train,

Through a cloud of chalk and the midst of pain,

Where the noise is made with big Forty-Fives,

A deep voice bellowed as he wrapped his knees.

A very big man with legs like trees.

Laughing as he snatched another plate from the stack,

Chalking his hands and in a monstrous bark,

Said,”Boy, stop lying and don’t say you’ve forgotten,

The trouble with you is you ain’t been SQUATTIN’.”

—-DALE CLARK—

As I sit in my chair writing this article, I feel like I am going to pass out.  I fear having to get up and walk somewhere.  I struggle to keep my eyes open and even form words that I am typing correctly.  It wasn’t this bad yesterday, I felt a general lack of energy in my legs, but nothing like the overall soreness felt whenever I have to depend on my legs for some type of movement. 

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Making the commitment to your health and fitness is a big step in ensuring your well-being for years to come.  Most people will automatically hire a trainer to tell them what to do and what to eat and when.  This is fine, but not totally necessary.  The gym can be a scary place for a newbie.  Lots of machines, stations, racks, dumbbells and most of all, people.  Most people will be tolerant of a rookie trying to find his or her way around the maze of iron.  But there will always be some people who want to use the machine you are on or don’t take kindly to your lack of gym ettiquette knowledge, even if you have a trainer by your side telling you what to do (not all trainers are experts in gym ettiquette either).  Don’t let these people or this environment scare you away from your transformation goals.  With a little preparation and know-how, you can survive in the iron jungle, without a trainer or helping hand.

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The way I see it, a healthy lifestyle isn’t just eating well or doing cardio 4 times a week.  Living a healthy lifestyle is attention to detail 24/7/365.  Its making the correct choices and planning, so you know what to expect at all times.

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There comes a point in time when you just don’t feel like hitting the gym. Or you do get to the gym, but no matter how hard you push, you cant get the same intensity out of your workouts.  Your weights are dropping, as are your energy levels and you start to wonder what is going on.

The answer is Overtraining.  After weeks upon weeks of tearing down your muscles in hopes of rebuilding them stronger and bigger, your body just doesnt operate at maximum as it once did.  When you first start lifting, your body tends to grow the most for the first couple years, then it starts to respond less and less as your experience rises.  This is natural.  The human body is built to adapt to changes and come back better more improved.  As you train, your body starts to adapt to the constant stress and strain, so that next time it doesnt affect the muscle tissue as much. That is why you are much more sore the first time you lift a muscle group or lift a certain way.  The more you do it, the more the body adapts and the less impact the workout has.

So what do you do?  Lift with more intensity, more volume and more repetitions?  You could, but you will get less results the deeper you go down this path.  Think about this.  Take AT LEAST two weeks off at this point.  Rest up. Let your muscles reap the benefits from your nutrition plan without having to spend most of the calories on repairing the muscle.  When you come back to the gym, try a different workout scheme.  If you were doing low reps, high sets, try high reps for medium or high sets.  Give your muscles something different to react to.  Keep your body guessing.

If you notice the signs of overtraining, the sooner the better. Being able to get your body back to maximum performance can keep the gains coming and motivation levels high.  Don’t confuse overtraining with being lazy, though.  If you only go to the gym 2-3 times a week, you are giving your body plenty of time to rest, you might want to try a different motivational strategy.  Check out some of our Mindset articles

Building the perfect workout is alot like building a house.  You start with the foundation and move upwards.  A precisely engineered workout plan can be the difference between reaching your goals and falling short.  A solid workout plan has a good balance of active and rest days and are scheduled logically.  It also has training of muscle groups scheduled efficiently to allow for sufficient rest and recovery between workouts.  See below for a breakdown of each aspect that is important to building the perfect workout

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So you say you can squat 500 lbs?  Show me.  And I’ll show you the 17 things you are are doing wrong. Why does it matter?  Because doing 500 lbs 1/4 of the distance you can do 225 doesnt help you grow or get stronger.  All it does is show people around the gym that you know how to count to 500 in 45 lb plates. 

Yeah, it might be a shot to your ego to strip those plates off and do the exercise correctly, with strict form, but I guarantee three things -

1. You will get a better workout, recruiting more muscle fibers like you are supposed to
2. You will be sore as hell, more sore than you could ever think of getting doing 1/4 reps with more weight.
3. You will grow faster and larger than ever before

So what you can’t squat 500 correctly…not yet.  Doing the proper form will build those legs to dimensions that will eventually support 500 lbs, and make you look like you can squat a lot more. 

The name of the game is size, strength and shape. You want to impress the chick at the gym?  You don’t have to pretend to be able to lift alot, do the small things to build your physique and then they will assume you can lift it without you even having to.

In the quest to get bigger, faster, stronger and leaner, lifters turn to resistance training to get them to their goals.  Providing resistance against movements can be accomplished in many ways.  Isometric movements are where the body part is holding still against a force.  Isotonic movements are where the body part is moving against the force.  The overall goal for resistance training is to gradually and progressively overload the musculoskeletal system so it gets stronger.

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If you’ve been watching the news for the past couple years now, you have seen (and probably felt) the impact of the financial recession that has engulfed the United States.  People are losing their life savings and their income in these times of distress.  Trying to keep their house and still pay bills and make ends meet is becoming harder and harder every day.  The morale of the American public, as a whole, has taken a hit and hitting healthcare even harder.