Mind Over Muscle

Did you know that the types of cues you use with your athletes can have a SIGNIFICANT effect on how they perform? Of course you did. But I bet you didn’t know that the mind-muscle connection is known as attentional focus. Take something like training the almighty bench press…External focus is when you have your athletes think about exerting force through a performance movement…”shove your opponent away from you”. Internal focus is when you instruct the athlete to “puff the chest out, engage the pecs”. Both are effective but have VERY different training results.

So, this show has me really jazzed. PhD Student Rachel Larson is here to discuss internal and external focus in training. If you are doing any kind of performance training, this applies to you. How you think about moving a load or achieving a lift can depend on your focus. Meaning, if you are thinking about how the muscles should be working together you’ve got an internal focus. If you’re thinking about a metaphor for the task you’re performing, like in a bench press you’re thinking about shoving away an opponent, you’re thinking externally. The exciting thing is that there is some VERY compelling research pointing to one being more advantageous. Larson is on the cutting edge of this research and she is here to share with us.

EMPOWER YOUR PERFORMANCE.

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