 Mind muscle connection is very simply the ability to feel and flex a muscle when performing an exercise The ability to focus a high amount of tension really squeeze that targeted body part as Opposed for moving the weight from point A to point B The main factor people miss when weight training even outside of using the correct amount of weight is really our ultimate goal Taking that specific targeted muscle to failure If you're doing a bench press for chest growth, ideally your chest is getting hammered as opposed to your front delt and triceps But that's not always the case. This is the main focus of today Removing those accessory muscle groups even with compound exercises One overarching rule is that the larger your muscles are the easier they are to stimulate So once you get to a certain point you will inevitably see progress if you get to it I did a whole video on that explaining how you start with light weight you get the muscle to a certain size There's less of a margin of error in stimulating that muscle So you need to have this strong mind muscle connection to use light weights effectively But using too heavy of a weight also impairs mind muscle connection Shifting focus to the tendons the ligaments the accessory muscles that we're not focusing on taking to failure The reason we really need to have a good mind muscle connection when using light weight is because when you passively move the weight You know the point a to point B style of lifting a lighter amount of weight Doesn't activate as many muscle fibers as a heavy weight You know, you could have one person curling a 10 pound dumbbell that is absolutely tearing their bicep to shreds and Another person that is just working his wrist tendon and shoulder the first person is actively flexing their muscle on the concentric part of the movement and Actively stretching their muscle on the eccentric part. The second person would be more focused on just moving the weight And yeah, he might feel something in his biceps Just not as much as he should and not as effectively on each repetition And this is partially why many people see more success using heavier weight than lighter weight If you don't have that mind muscle connection If you're not focused the heavier weight generally yields better results for the average Joe So it's this weird scenario where using proper form with a lighter weight is more effective And that should compromise more of your routine But people typically can't execute that so they end up using a heavier weight when you do use that heavy weight However, it can be incredibly difficult to establish the mind muscle connection to take only the chest to failure With something like a flat bench press I would bet that 99% of people are not properly flexing and stretching their chest throughout the movement You know a good contrast example here is when I saw Jay Cutler training with Mike O'Hearn Jay was using a lighter weight to really stimulate the muscle while Mike was going heavy for the sake of going heavy One thing we have to consistently point out is the use of performance enhancing drugs Jay benching to plates as a lightweight is not something that should ever be compared to a natural bodybuilder So the heavy weight is putting a maximum amount of tension on all muscle groups involved in the movement For bench press that would be chest front delts and triceps But what muscle is going to failure first if your goal is chest? I hope it's not your front delts if you lower the weight you can actively focus on squeezing the chest So instead of using 200 pounds putting 90% tension on your chest 80% on your triceps and 100% on your shoulders You can use 150 pounds put 80% on your chest and only 20 to 30% on your triceps and shoulders Yes, when you lower the weight you're reducing the tension on the main muscle group You're working at least at that static point in time for one rep But if your shoulders have more tension and go to failure before your chest That doesn't matter simply by doing more repetitions reducing the rest time and really focusing on that chest flexion You'll be able to effectively take your chest to failure with a lighter weight This is interesting to me because I don't really hear other people talking about it when you reduce the weight You aren't necessarily doing that much less with the main muscle group if you're really good with mind muscle connection You can reduce the activity of those accessory muscles so much that you burn out shred Really take that chest to failure using a light weight now. I'm not saying you shouldn't bench press or do a compound movement with heavy weight I think they can effectively be incorporated into a workout routine and the majority of people will see benefits But by no means do I see them as necessary and if you want to build a symmetrical balanced physique It may be better for some people to focus more on this concept Can you have a strong mind muscle connection with heavy weight? Yes, but as we mentioned earlier, you know once your muscles are larger if you're taking steroids Massive amounts of performance enhancing drugs you will likely grow your muscles to a large enough point very rapidly It's obvious you can't stimulate something that isn't there and especially when starting out smaller muscles Don't require heavy weights for growth by using the correct weight We're able to get our muscles to the size where we don't have to focus as much to maintain that mind muscle connection So thank you guys for joining me. Hopefully this gives you some ideas to incorporate into your own workout routine If you guys do want to reach out to me for consulting go to frank-default.com I'll try to get my training website up in the very near future If you guys do want to support me, please just drop a like on the video Leave me a comment down below and above all if you could please share the video on social media If you guys do want to support me further, you know how to do so down in the description. Thanks again for joining me today guys I hope you enjoy your workout