Today, nearly a month after the ominous fail, I pushed out 100kg! Without any help, twice! 😀 When I say “without any help” I mean physically of course. The spiritual and mental preparation, extra special support like slaps, punches, stinging, kicks, chokes and other sorted tortures – thanks to my coach Gabor – was necessary to been able to achieve this result.

F*ck you 100kg!

Just for the record, I tried the 100kg again two weeks after the nasty failure, and although I was able to push it out once, it was very infirm and shaky. I was diffident because the experience when this weight is almost squashed me is moved in my mind. I had to break this imaginery wall, I had to defeat my fear. After this try, I was not completely satisfied, and I did not feel the strength so I left the weight alone.

Gabi noticed well this fight inside of my mind and asked me to lie down on the bench again, hold the bar, trust him and do what he says. First I was scared, because sometimes I do not know what’s going on his head. Soon Dani and Gabor started to pitch the reels and they were already 115kg. “You will not hurt me, trust me,” he said, gently biting the weight.

Gabi noticed well my inner fight and asked me to lie down the bench again, just grab the bar and trust him. First I was scared, because sometimes I do not know what’s going on his head. Soon Dani and Gabor started to pitch the plates up to the bar and they were already 115kg. “It won’t hurt you, trust me,” – he said and gently deflate the weight on to my chest.

Of course It was scary and a little bit heavy, but the point was that I need to feel this much of weight on my chest, I needed to faced the fact that there’s nothing to fear of. If 115kg does not crush me, then 100kg will neither. You say that in vain, you have to feel it. Your brain needs to combine this experience with the physical weight itself, because imagine something is totally different than experiencing it physically. The brain is a mistery, but it worked for me. Now I was able to defeat my own created barrier spiritually. It was a great lession.

Mind muscle connection

Those who have been involved or just interested about bodybuilding may have heard this term: Brain-Muscle Connection, also known as Muscle Awareness. Perhaps the simplest way to define this term to say that it is an elevated, concentrated state when you are able to exclude external circumstances, focuses on your muscle only so that each phase of your exercise, every repetition, is conscious. Control your body perfectly, feel as you pumped blood into your muscles and your muscle would be the only thing what you are focusing on. If you can accomplish this from workout to workout, your own development awareness is getting stronger and you can train more and more concentrated. You will be able to train your own brain-muscle relationship.

At the first time, when 100kg stays on my chest, I was wondering why I can not push up this weight once neither. Of course the most simplest answer is that my muscles were tired or I was not ready for this task physically. Most of the cases it’s true, but the cause of the failure as much to do with the brain and nervous system as the muscles itself. Your conscious mind doubts that you are able to do a single push, or your subconscious mind maxed out because of physical overload (or both).

Train your brain

There are methods to improve the brain-muscle relationship. Think about not just the well-known slogans here, such as “think positively”, “concentrate”, though they are also gives a little help. The role of vizualization is very important: imagine the muscle you are currently working on, think trough the whole movement, and even breath taking, set the number of repetitions as a goal, but most importantly:

Try to imagine what a fantastic feeling it will be when you succeed to accomplish the planned exercise!

Imagine the biceps and your brain that are connected by nerve fibers. You can imagine yourself as a speaker – a wire from the hi-fi will go to the left speaker and another to connect the unit to the right speaker. Suppose that you need to lift up 50kg. From experience you know that you have been able to do maximum eight repetitions in the past. In fact, the muscles also remember the feeling of the eight repetitions.

A little science

All the muscles of the body have a mechanism of sensation. The “Golgi receptor” located in the neck of the muscle. The receptor sends a message through the nerves to the brain in case of increased muscle tension on the thews. Their job is to protect your muscles from injury or exhaustion in a way that will tell you when to stop your load and it has a motor memory which remembers the previous muscle failures.

So when you get to eight repetitions and your conscious thoughts say that your muscles are able to do more, the muscles, the nerves, and the subconscious mind suggest the opposite. It is good news that the conscious mind temporarily overwrites this stopping mechanism. In fact, with physical and mental training, the tolerance of the Golgi receptor and the motor memory of the muscles, the threshold can be extended.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that success can be lead another success. If you already know something is possible, feasible, it is easier to do it over and over again. But if something never succeeded yet, your mind and muscles suggest that it is not possible at all.

How can this be execute? You have to do two important things: defeat your conscious and subconscious mind as well as nerves and muscles to make that task enforceable and try to get closer to the relationship between your muscles and your mind. Vizualization helps with the first task, brain-muscle exercises with the second.

No-brainer tough guy! 🙂

If you heard that insulting phrase, you’re usually thinking of a mischievous big man who can not even date his birthday. In the light of the above, you may find a new meaning for that. Close relationship between the muscles and the brain is essential for maximum growth, so these No-brainer tough guys are not nearly as stupid as most of us think.