Use Your Brain To Grow Your Body (Mind-Muscle Connection)

What’s up Gronk Fitness! This is Glenn Gronkowski and today we will be talking about Mind-Muscle Connection!

What is “mind muscle connection”? When I first heard this term I thought of a bunch of hippies running around doing curls at Wakefest. This is the “other” side of sports that isn’t often touched upon, the psychological side. Although one should begin to understand the importance of Mind Muscle Connection because of the obvious fact that the mind is what controls the movements of the body.

Normally no athlete would think of the importance of using their brain to train their muscles, however mind muscle connection has been one of the largest and most effective tools I have utilized to achieve the physique I have today. The philosophy rooted from bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger but it can easily be applied to any sport, including football, basketball, strongman training or even running the marathon.

Calum Von Moger put it best when he said, “If you can picture yourself going out on the soccer field and scoring a goal, you will be able to”. I had experience with the same philosophy back in my college days. Until I could envision myself doing the trick and taking the correct steps and foot movement to successfully preform it, it would never work out.

Now here are some ways to adopt this to your training:

• FOCUS
  • DO your reps fully and properly, stretch your muscles and feel them contract
  • DO NOT simply jerk through the movements
• Think About Your Goal
  • DO think of the aesthetic and functional goals you want to achieve with this movement
  • DO NOT do the exercise just to get it done
• Work The Right Muscle Groups
  • DO work the right muscles that are supposed to be worked – isolate them with fluent but controlled reps and good negatives
  • DO NOT work the wrong muscles ( example: doing Bench Press with your elbows so far tucked in that its essentially a Close Grip Bench Press

So next time someone tells you to work on more than your body, tell them you’re training your mind, body and patience as well.

And before you even think about picking up the weight and beginning your first set, take a few minutes to clear your thoughts, focus on your goals and most importantly… get your mind right.