Building Muscle With Baby Weights
The only thing muscles feel is tension.
If you’re trying to elicit a HYPERTROPHIC response in a muscle, you might think you need to increase the weight of your lifts… that is true, to a point.
However, if you’re not increasing tension on the specific muscle, you’re not going to see targeted hypertrophy.
Many people looking to improve a muscle group only focus on putting up bigger numbers because you think the increased weight is gonna lead to increased gains.
Ego-lifting heavyweight usually leads to using muscle groups that you’re not even trying to train.
Your muscles will never know the ‘number’ on the weight.
They can’t recognize whether you’re lifting 10 lbs or 100 lbs.
The ONLY thing muscles ever FEEL is TENSION. If you increase the amount of TENSION, you can increase the hypertrophic response!
Lower the weight, be conscious of the mind-muscle connection. Think about your muscle contracting and the exact path and angle of what the muscle is meant to do; this is TENSION.
This will lead to more developed musculature.
Think, “what does that muscle move when it contracts?”
There’s a chance you will see better results training by purely focusing on the contraction of the muscle you’re trying to focus on — with a much lighter weight — than you would by lifting high numbers alone.
It’s possible to shred your biceps like never before with light dumbbells if you research the path and flexion of the biceps and load weight according to that path.
Heavyweights will always have their place, BUT in terms of hypertrophy alone, they’re not the be-all + end-all.
If you’re trying to improve a specific muscle:
- Find exercises that YOU FEEL the most
- CONTROLLED Eccentric phase (lowering)
- Explosive but still controlled Concentric phase (lifting)
- Leave the ego at door, lower the weight, truly try and ISOLATE the muscle you want to train
All that matters is that you create tension; do this by having a mind-muscle connection with the muscle you want to improve.
An added benefit of training this way is less strain on your body and joints overall, keeping you healthier and happier and able to train more often.
However, if you’re training for powerlifting, then this advice obviously goes out the window because you’re trying to lift as much weight as possible.
But for hypertrophy, you’re better off slowing things down, focusing on movements that feel best for you and pumping that muscle up.
