For the longest my upper chest was lagging and I was like WTF? man this isn't happenin' i'm inclining like 125s dbs for reps and the upper chest is lagging, so I sat there and questioned it and I noticed that if you focus on the muscle itself and attempt to contract it willingly as you lift the weight this produces a superb result because you're actually working with the muscle rather than against a muscle, anyhow glad to say that my upper chest is coming up. Just some thoughts that came into my head.

Any of you fellas have similar experiences and/or tips that would enhance ones overall training.

Also when my motivation goes down or i'm in a slump and you know those dark days when you don't feel like training I go and pose in the mirror and imagine myself being on the next level that I want to achieve.

When you learn to contract the focus muscle during an exercise it make all the difference in the world. Personally I had a hard time acheiving this with the inner pecs, but it came with time and focus.

When I'm feeling shitty and don't want to train, I remind myself how good I feel post workout & how it feels even better to have a good workout even when you didn't feel like it. No excuses.

Or, I remind myself of how how Layne trains, and that get's me ready to go. But that is an absolute last resort. I would hate to get to dependant upon Layne for this, because I have a wife at home.

I've recently found myself trying to get more contraction and feel the muscle while I'm lifting. Kind of hard to do unfortunatly. All I ever was concerned with for the past three and a half years was about how much weight I was moving. Not how the muscle is feeling or growing.

I have pretty much started off at a super low weight and try and feel my body work with it. Than move up in the weight. Trying to get more contraction and feelings every week.

The amount of muscle I gained really shot up when I perfected (or at least got very close to perfecting) the mind-muscle connection. When I work the muscle, I do exactly that, it's hard to describe but I find working in harmony with your body yeilds better results than working against it. There are still a few bodyparts I have not perfected the connection, these are, hamstrings (on SLDL's I can never feel them working to the extent I desire), triceps (to some extent) and calves, don't get me wrong, I get an incredible contraction using Freaker's inversion technique but I still don't think I've perfected the isolation. I think the best connection I have is with my back, I absolutely LOVE doing cable pulley rows and bent over rows, they're better than sex. Yes, really!

On the rare occasions I need to get motivated, I think of how easy I am making it for everyone to surpass me. I'll watch a video, whether it be Ronnie, Testosterone Boys (a documentary which was shown in the UK last year covering the 2002 Nationals) or even a video of Layne going mental in the gym gets me pumped, as well as a good selection of music. mmmm. "Down With The Sickness", in particular, makes me go to war.

I have to agree with you on the mind/muscle connection and your back. It truly feels awesome feeling all the seperate muscles individually contracting during an exercise.

The easiest for me were the calves & biceps, I believe because I started with such a low weight, I really progressed over time, and I increased the weight, the connection was still there.

Next came the back, which had me, and still has me excited every time I head to the gym to train.

Triceps are still developing as of right now, it's getting better, but still not where I'd like it to be.

Quads & hams, especially hamstrings I can feel VERY well. During SL DB DL's it's just feels awesome. Before I had learned to control the muscle, I really only felt a stretch, and that was it.

Shoulders is also very good for me now, rear delts especially.

Once again in terms of motivation, don't you just love the way it feels to have a great workout when you began feeling lethargic? And the way it translated into a great day, where nothing else can stagger your concentration to complete any task. I love that feeling, and it's the reason I really hate taking days off from the gym.

I noticed that today I did leg curls with 200 lbs, and before I'd do them and that was of that, but today I focused on the muscle, man I squeezed every ounce of power out of my hamstrings on that set, it was amazing, but sad to say you have to lower the weight to properly focus on the muscle, becuase IMO if you're overloading by a great deal like lets say I can do 155 lb barbell curls, but if i go upto 165lbs in a workout than i'm working against my body like the guy up there stated, so therefore lowering it to lets say 135 lbs but really working the muscle is where it's at. I'm so fuckin' glad I discovered this and its' already making the world of difference in my chest.

Not to take anything away from mind muscle connection, but to focus on the muscle means most would have to slow down their reps to feel the connection. Pounding out reps at a rabbits pace would make it hard to focus as opposed to a static hold to where it is complete focus on exhausting that particular muscle.

Im a big believer in DC's training, and the one thing he advocates is slow ass eccentric movements 3-5 secs depending on muscle, something you dont see much in new lifters who are just after the poundage numbers.

When I first started to slow down my reps, of course the poundage went down as well as my ego, but soon after I surpassed my old numbers and the new growth is coming a lot faster.

Just a thought.

One thing to consider, is that often contracting the muscle leads to subsconscious corrections in form, at least for me.

I, too, had a similar experience on the bench press, but it wasn't until recently that I discovered what seemed to really make the difference was that, as I contracted my pecs, I pushed my chest up, which pulled my shoulder blades back, minimizing deltoid involvement. I think Lyle has mentioned that this is one of the major bench mistakes (not pulling shoulders back), so I found that to be interesting.

Similarly, I've found that contracted my lats generally 'forces' me to 'pull through my elbows', causing reversion to proper form on exercises like chin-ups and rows.

I don't know if others have had similar experiences, but I sort of wonder if it's the actual contraction, or the fact that a solid mind-muscle connection can cause a subconscious form correction.

Working the upper chest: Wide-grip bench press to the neck, flare elbows back towards the head as fare as possible when the bar is almost touching the neck. That's how Serge Nubret performed the bench press. With this technique you'll have to lose any ego you have.

Weak-range partials: perform 1/4 - 1/3 reps where you are weakest in performing a rep. Usually this is where the muscle is at its fullest stretch during the exercise. This portion of the rep is the most likely to affect satelite cells.

I cant emphasize how much it has benefited me when i stopped focusing on the weight and instead try to feel the muscle working and pumped during workouts.

I curb the urge to increase weight almost every workout (HST without predetermined poundages) and i can finally feel my calves working for the FIRST time since i started bodybuilding. Its a shame.

For people guility of this, tell yourself the weight will go up anyway and learn to love the pain (or pump) you get when contracting the muscle correctly. I do this myself and the present HST cycle is going really well.

Absolutely

No offense... but this sounds like surefire injury.

I sortof had the same thought..

In contrast to what has been said throughout this thread, I found that making serious gains in strength and size comes from finding the form that allows for the most force produced (quote unquote focusing on the weight).

Also in contrast I base my program on compound excercises exclusively, so isolations are of little use for me. I apologize from going against the grain in terms of body sculpting "bodybuilding" ideals. I believe that shaping your muscles the way you think looks best will ultimately lead to unbalance and pinched nerves, etc.

When I say that it is most functional to find the form that results in maximum force produced, I'm talking about deads, squats, etc. I have this strange feeling that our bodies were built to adapt to certain tasks that would ultimately lead to our survival. These muscles work in balance best when we do what we were bulit to do.

Sorry for being so contentious, but I had to learn this the hard way. The rotator cuff is much too complex to train in complete balance without luck or else exclusively compound excercises. My numbers looked fine, but I still managed to earn a pinched C7 cervical nerve by neglecting large but weak muscles in favor of small but strong muscles. By large and small I only compare to some grecian or bodybuilding ideals, not by my oddball Jew "made for buliding pyramids" type genetics.