The ability to consciously connect to a target muscle to ‘feel’ it working is a feature of resistance training.

Simply moving a weight from A-B is fine, but are you using the muscles you want to? It’s easy to compensate, use momentum, lock out a joint, and lose tension or a whole load of other factors that could affect where your moving load goes. 

The body is efficient, and by being efficient, it wants to use the least amount of energy possible to perform any task. Keeping a muscle constantly engaged is more demanding than a bit of ‘cheating’.

Becoming a good mover and efficient weight lifter requires a period where you focus on this ability to connect to your body.

But…

Interestingly there is zero evidence to support internal queuing and sensation in training. So why on earth am I suggesting it?

In the research going heavier and adding volume always beats MMC. But, research is usually around 8-12 weeks, which is not a long enough time to get large enough gains in strength and hypertrophy. Anecdotally, people with very little ability to connect to a muscle struggle after a few years to develop. Research isn’t carried out for that time frame. So for this topic, I lean more on experience.

A word of warning!

I also think some people take the sensation they feel too far. Mini band glute work is famous because you can feel the glutes work, but that is only because the exercises hold the glutes in shortened positions, which will create a lot of tension, but that tension isn’t going to help you grow muscle or to get stronger. Only adding load and volume while working through a full range of motion will do this. 

Stay tuned next week for another instalment of Master the Basics and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram where I share exercise techniques, and show you how to maximise your training. I hope you enjoyed this blog post, if you have any questions I host a weekly Sunday Q&A session on my Instagram channel. Otherwise, please feel free to email me at andy@andyvincentpt.com. 

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