If you don’t feel contracting muscles, it’s better not to exercise.

In the gym, I saw many friends blindly pursuing training weight. Even if they sacrifice the correct posture, they would have to lift dumbbell barbells that they could not cope with... These friends actually have muscle growth, but their muscle building effectiveness is relatively reduced, and the risk of injury increases significantly. Why bother? To train safely and effectively, the most important thing is to learn to feel muscle contraction!

　　Fitness ≠weightlifting

　　You who are based on fitness pursue muscle growth and the appearance of lines, so we need to train muscles in the gym. Instead of lifting weights. We use appropriate weights and techniques to train the target muscle groups, with the purpose of making muscles grow, and weightlifting is just a way to achieve this goal.

　　Study muscles--to learn to isolate the target muscle groups (use the chest to exercise, use the chest to exert force when practicing back, use the back to exert force when practicing back)

　　In fact, it is impossible for people to completely isolate a group of muscles, but at least you can complete a certain action based on a group of muscles.

　　After you do bench press, will your chest muscles not feel? On the contrary, the triceps hurt for 2 days? After trying to do a deadlift, the hips are still strong but the waist is sore for 3 days?

These examples prove that you will not isolate the target muscle group you want to train, but instead use other auxiliary muscles excessively.

　　What is the reason?

　　1. You will not feel the contraction of the target muscle group, you just want to complete the movements;

　　2. The technical and posture are wrong;

　　3. The resistance weight is too large, so the target muscle group is not strong enough, so you need to use other muscle assistance. Complete the movement.

In fact, you won’t feel muscle contraction, which will directly lead to the occurrence of causes 2 and 3! Because you won’t feel muscles, you don’t know whether you have used the target muscles, and therefore you can’t notice the errors in the technique and posture.

　　Same reason, because you don’t know whether the target muscles are tightened during the movement, you don’t know whether the weight is too large, and whether there are other auxiliary muscle groups to complete the movement.

How to learn to feel muscles?

There are two main methods in total:

　　a. Understand what muscles are used for each movement and keep in mind the target muscle

　　For example, the most important movement of pull-ups is Lats. During the exercise, the lats dorsi contracts, driving the humerus (upper arm) to move closer to the body, so the body rises up.

　　Concentration of mind (like sexual fantasy): When you do pull-ups, you should concentrate on the lats dorsi and exert force. You must feel that the latissimus dorsi is contracting and exerting force; when the body is falling, you must feel the pulling feeling of the latissimus dorsi. In other words, you must think about the latissimus dorsi for the whole set of movements.

　　If you don’t have the strength to do pull-ups, you must first train pull-ups and learn how to exert force on the latissimus dorsi.

　　　The pull-ups involve multiple sets of muscles, so you must be more concerned about the latissimus dorsi.

b. Choose weight rather than heavy

　　Please remember that you must learn to feel the contraction of the target muscle, rather than not. It is just as long as the movement is completed, so the choice of weight is simply lighter than heavy, which is especially important for beginners!

Taking bench press as an example, many novices ask me why the triceps are always tired first during bench press, but the chest muscles don’t feel much. This is because the strength of the chest muscles is not enough to cope with the weight you choose. Therefore, in order to protect itself, the body needs to use the triceps helper to lift the weight.

This body mechanism is very important because our body is designed to cope with the sudden outbreak. Challenges and dangers. Just imagine if you can only use your lower body when jumping high, and the upper body must remain still, how high can you jump?

　　So, to learn to feel the muscles tightening, you must adjust the weight to your target muscles to cope with it. If it exceeds it, you may be misled by the signals sent by other auxiliary muscles.

　　How to adjust the weight?

　　Go to find the feeling and slowly increase the weight until you no longer feel the weight of the muscles throughout the movement, and it is just a lighter frame!