Mind-muscle connection (MMC)
Let’s talk about mind-muscle connection and how it comes into play with pull-ups. Imagine yourself hanging with a neutral underhand grip (chin-up), to pull yourself up you need to pull your hands towards your shoulders, just like you would with a bicep curl, ok, keep this image in the back of your head while you imagine hanging with a hybrid overhand grip (pull-up, but not the widest grip), pull your hands to shoulder level, you can do this with the same bicep contraction you performed for the chin-up and your lats can be close to non-active at all. You need to understand that it’s you who controls what muscles to engage, only if you have a good understanding of where those muscles are and how to connect with them do you have a good mind-muscle connection, and can you decide what to turn off or turn on. Now go back to that same hybrid overhand grip pull-up and think about pulling the elbows towards the hips while relaxing the biceps as much as possible, think about pushing the chest up to the bar. You can achieve the same end result (hand to shoulder level) by connecting and using different muscles to make the same movement. Of course strength comes into play, if you’re able to connect to your lats but they simply do not have the strength to power the complete movement—which is more than likely when you’re just starting out with pull-ups—then you either can’t complete the movement or you will need to call for the help of other muscles like the biceps/brachilias.
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