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Muscle Contraction - Are You Working Out Hard Enough?

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Rating: 4.0; Vote: 1

If you are trying to build muscle size or strength, it-s important that you understand the nuances of muscle contraction. In order to get a weight to move from one place to another, you have to contract a muscle. That said, muscle contractions are graded. This means, that a muscle will not contract with it-s maximum force unless called for by the task at hand. Knowing that muscles recruit motor units based on the size principle, in order to get a maximum or near max muscle contraction we have to learn how to optimize motor unit recruitment. One of the fastest ways to do this is to strive to lift heavier and heavier weights. Heavier weights will definitely recruit a more significant amount of your fast twitch muscle fibers than a weight that is far too light to challenge you. That said, lifting heavy is not enough. In order to maximize the force of your contraction and therefore the number of motor units participating in a contraction you have to have effort! Effort is voluntarily controlled by your brain. How bad to you want it? How much do you want to really get out of your workout? If you simply go through the motions of moving a weight from point a to point b, you-ll elicit a muscle contraction but most likely not strong enough to cause an overload or adaptive change in strength or size in the long run. In this video, I show you two examples of this. If you perform a cable crossover and do so with full range of motion, you are definitely using the muscles that you are intending to use. In this case, the chest is contracting to bring your arms out in front and across your body. That isn-t enough to ensure overload. In fact, without even having to manipulate the amount of weight used, you can definitely intensify the move by adding intent and effort. In the second example, I add a clearly heightened effort to the contraction (and the results are evident. It-s never enough to just move a weight from one place to another. You must move the weight with a focus on contracting the targeted muscles as hard as you can when you reach full contraction. This slight difference can make a huge difference in the results that you see in the long run. Not caring about effort while moving your body is simply a form of exercise. While exercise may be important to being active, it isn-t usually strong enough to create changes in muscle size and strength. To do that, you have to train hard while training smart. You can do this by training like an athlete at using the ATHLEAN-X Training System
Date: 2022-04-22

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Comments and reviews: 10

sport
Great video. This exact question has been on my mind for quite some time and I've played around with it in different workouts. For instance, I can do Lat Pulldowns with excellent form for 8 reps at 120lbs and feel nothing special in my back (other than a general feeling of being tired) OR I can do 15 reps with 40 lbs really focusing on only pulling with my Lats and not with my hands and arms (although on some level they must be pulling or the bar wouldn't come down more than a few inches due to scapular retraction) and I'll get an killer pain in my back and extreme DOMS for three days. What the heck! .so which way is the most efficient at bringing me my back growth. I guess the middle ground would be only working with the -heaviest- weight that still allows me to feel my back. is this the answer?
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Nozumi
This is what always confuses me when he talks about Contraction. I tried to understand the video, but just can't really connect by what he means by it. I understand pushing farther than it should. I been getting into working out and all my stuff looks like I'm half assing it. I'm not really getting the shakes like he is, even though the weights are heavy. Like, if I'm doing a flex, do I keep trying to push that barbell as close to me as possible? When I try to do it like my life depends on it, it just results in moving my muscles faster.
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Nick
Great video again Jeff, and thats why my only motivation is actually stepping back and gazing round the gym at the real lack of effort going on and hence the results in outstanding physiques or lack off, after training 25+ years I took a 6inch step up & a 12llb plate for a workout and was absolutely broken and whole body got worked in 20 mins and is forcing me to take 2 days off to recover, to be different think different and with your help & guidance I seem to be moving forward still even at my age.
Nick.
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Aminul
Hi Jeff, I've worked hard for the last 5 months which allowed me to lose nearly 70 lbs I think I have about 20 lbs left to lose and will hopefully get there soon. My problem is my skin around my stomach region. I wanna be tight and it ain't looking good. Could you do a video on tighten skin or any advice at all about this topic. I dont wanna achieve so much and just have a flap or excess skin to show for it.
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XxSHARPYxX
this is the workout my gym teacher has my class do
12 reps at original weight
10 reps and add 10 pounds
8 reps and add 10 pounds
6 reps and add 10 pounds
and we do leg press, bench press, shoulder press, chin pulleys is what he calls them, and posture row. we do that in around 40 after we run for 6 minutes. I was wondering if that is effective or not. any response is greatly appreciated!
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Matthew
Hey Jeff. I've been really focusing on contraction lately, doing all exercises with a clean, slow, focused rep. I've been noticing gains through this method and wanted to know in what circumstances would I ever need to do -fast- movements? Surely I can just train every muscle with say a 5 second up 5 second down rep to really feel the contraction? Please answer you're the only trainer I trust!
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David
This is true about heavy weight. but it also applies to high reps as well. As your recruited fibers are fatigued, more are recruited to continue the work until no more can be recruited and you reach failure. therefore high reps can accomplish the very same effect as long as you go to failure. Intent is the same in both cases, and i agree that it is effective.
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Jorge
I always have this question but I can't never get the answer I want. The question is: For example, last night I only got 5 hours of sleep but I want to go workout today. I don't feel sleepy. Do you recommend me to stay home and recover my hours of sleep and workout tomorrow or is it ok to workout today? I would really appreciate your help, I'm a big fan.
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Enrique
The way I try to do it is to get the weight up (in a bench press) as fast as I can, explosively. Is it better for me to contract intensely but do it slower? I feel that with the explosiveness I am forcing my muscles to do the strong possible movement as it is with weights that I already struggle with on a normal speed. Can anybody tell me?
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Veni
what if I wanna work on my slow twitch muscles and get bored easily? I do rep ranges from 10-20, 8 when I bump up the weight. but I need tighter arms, bigger back + lats, and smaller quads. I'm quad dominant, like most women my bottom half is bigger so balance is super important.
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