Mind-Muscel Connection for glute growth
Mind-Muscle connection is mental focus on the muscle we want to target. This means for example, that if we do an exercise for our glute, we put the whole focus in the glute muscle, we squeeze intentionally the glute on top and we focus all over the exercise on the tension in our glute muscle. Different studies have shown, that the mind-muscle connection can significantly enhance muscle activation during exercise. This means basically more muscle growth, more glute!
But how can we improve the mind-muscle connection?
1) Activate your glute before the main exercise: Do a little 5 – max.10 minutes warm up, make sure that you do a few activation exercises slowly and focus really on squeezing your glute. This warm up can help you to feel your glute better throughout your workout. Exercises I like to do for a warm up are:
- Stairmaster: take 2 steps every time and focus on squeezing your glute while pushing throughout the heel. If you want to, you can kick back the other leg, which gives you more activation in the other glute. I like to switch both technics up for about 5 minutes.
- Glute bridges: do 10 really slow glute bridges (lying on the back, feet in a right angle, drive through your heels and lift your hips up, hold and back down. Focus on squeezing your glute all the way up and all the way down.
- Donkey kickbacks: do 10 reps slow and controlled, focusing on the glute
- Banded lateral walk: use a loop resistance band slightly above your knees and do 8-10 steps in one, and then in the other direction. Focus on squeezing your glute all the way.
- Clamshell: Lie on your side with your hips and knees bent and your heels together. Try to keep your hips stable an open your top knee as far as possible without tilting your pelvis and make sure to squeeze your glute and hold for a moment on top, then return to the starting position. Do this 10-15 times.
2) Exercise selection: There is different exercises which are more or less easy to connect with for you. This is not the same for all, so you have to try them out. Generally speaking, we can say that single isolation movements, like kickbacks, are mostly easier for a mind-muscle connection focus, multiple joint movements like squats or deadlifts can be harder to feel. Does it mean you shouldn`t do them? Definitely not! Try to do different forms of an exercise and start with one you can feel nicely in your glute. For example, instead of doing a classical deadlift with a barbell, try to take dumbbells, try a single leg version, and so on. If you want to keep on to the original form of the exercise and improve your mind-muscle connection there, read the next few technics
3) Use these technics for exercises, where you have a hard time building a good mind-muscle connection:
- Slow down the reps
- Incorporate pauses and holds, for example on top of a hip thrust
- Think about and imagine yourself squeezing your glute before, during and a little bit after the exercise
- Touch yourself: not in that way 😉, if you have a free hand, put your hand on the working glute muscle to feel the contraction
- Use lighter weights: often we can focus better on our muscle, when we use a lighter weight, to have less focus on the movement itself.
- Stretch and foam roll regularly: This can help you to improve the awareness of the glute muscle and reduce tightness in the glute.
Resources:
- Glute lab – the art and science of strength and physique training (Bret Contreras)
