Do you need to feel your muscles during a workout or not?

Author: Mikhail Ziborov - author of the site makefitness.pro.
2022-02-07

In the beginning of my sports practice (both in the gym and swimming), coaches told me that you need to feel the muscle or muscle group that you are currently working on. Whether you are making a stroke to swim or lifting a dumbbell. But how to feel that muscle if you have just started training? What is that feeling? And in general: why is it needed and does it help with anything? It does help. And it is necessary. But details are below.

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Why is it hard for beginners to feel their muscles?

The reason is that beginners do not yet have the neuromuscular connection that experienced trainees have. Neuromuscular connection is the connection between the brain and the muscles: the better it is, the more optimal your physical performance. When the neuromuscular connection is refined, the brain knows exactly what strength of nerve impulse needs to be sent to lift the working weight, how many muscle fibers to engage, etc.

A clear sign of poor neuromuscular connection is shaky hands in a beginner when performing exercises: bench press, pull-ups, etc.

A well-established neuromuscular connection precisely allows you to feel the necessary muscle or group of muscles. And since this connection is still weak in beginners, it's unlikely they will be able to truly feel the necessary muscle.

If someone thinks that feeling the right muscles is only for bodybuilders, you are mistaken!

Take swimming as an example. If you engage not only the necessary muscles but also others that don't help you at that moment, you'll simply waste energy and impede your progress forward. In the end, you'll tire out. Meanwhile, some guy will swim the same 200 meters faster and easier just by focusing on the muscles he needs.

Therefore, focusing on the working musculature is essential for everyone engaged in any kind of sport (except perhaps chess).

What does feeling the right muscle during training give you?

Here's where it gets interesting. If you clearly feel the working muscles, you can work about 5% more optimally (studies reported figures of 4-6%, and in one case as much as 9%).

What does this mean for an athlete and how does it help? It means that:

1. You can pump the muscle group or muscle you need faster, and synergistic muscles that assist in the work will not steal the load. It’s often seen that during pull-ups or when using a lat pulldown machine, guys pull not with their backs as they should but with their arms (biceps, brachioradialis, etc.). Their arms tire quickly, while the back hasn’t even feeling the load yet, and as a result – tired arms and an unworked back, despite pulling up specifically for back growth.

2. You can work longer in one set, maximizing your muscle output (doing more repetitions). It is known that triceps are stronger than pectoral muscles (experienced powerlifters try to engage triceps as much as possible in the bench press). Concentrating on the necessary muscle group - the triceps - in the bench press will enable you to press for longer (achieving more repetitions, going to failure while adequately loading all working musculature).

Or take the back as an example. Back muscles are larger and stronger than arm muscles. Thanks to them, you can do more pull-ups than you can with your arm muscles. By focusing on your back during pull-ups, you can work your back effectively, do more pull-ups, and not tire your arms prematurely.

Here are studies (1, 2, 3, 4) showing that concentration on a specific muscle during a workout enhances that muscle's activity (i.e., working longer and stronger).

By the way, research shows that if activity increases in one muscle when you concentrate on it, the activity in other working muscles does not decrease but remains the same.

3. You can save time. Concentrating on the necessary muscle, although it allows you to work longer in one set, but when taking the entire workout into account, concentration causes muscles to fatigue faster, meaning you can load them in less time. This method will be an excellent addition to the material "How to train when there is no time".

How to concentrate on feeling your muscles

The more experience you have in training, the better your neuromuscular connection will be, and the easier it will be for you to feel the necessary muscle. But what are these sensations? It’s the feeling of tension or a characteristic light pain during work with weights.

For example, we know exactly which muscles are working during a one-arm dumbbell row in a bent-over position. There are the latissimus dorsi, trapezius, shoulder blade muscles, biceps, and so on. But the target muscle in this exercise is the latissimus dorsi. So that's the one you need to feel during the dumbbell row: while lifting, try to relax all the other muscles (even those involved in the exercise) as much as possible, and try to tense the latissimus dorsi as if you’re pulling the weight with it. This is the feeling of the necessary muscle.

Interestingly, in the aforementioned studies, concentration on the necessary muscle is relevant only when working with light to medium weights, i.e., 20-65% of your one-rep max (1RM). When working with heavy weights (80% and above of 1RM), concentrating on the necessary muscle does not increase that muscle's activity.

This is not surprising. When you're under a barbell with maximum or near-maximum weight, there isn’t much time to concentrate. The only desire is to quickly get out from under that barbell and remain intact while completing the necessary number of repetitions. Moreover, muscle activity is already maximal in such cases (study).

In short, concentrating on the necessary muscles is a prerogative of those who train for endurance and work in a high-rep style. However, it’s also possible for those who train in a strength style to attempt to feel their muscles (just don't get too stressed if you lose concentration when lifting maximum weights). It's also relevant to feel the necessary muscles during warm-up sets, preparing that neuromuscular connection for the upcoming work.

By the way, this information overlaps with what I discussed earlier - "Muscle squeezing between sets: how to accelerate strength and mass gains.

For those looking to gain mass, here is the foundation for successful mass gaining, and here are additional nuances of muscle tissue growth (all the points to consider).