Why Can't I Feel My Muscles Working When I Lift?

Nikkiey: If you ever see people pulling, or they're going really fast through the repetitions, if that is you, slow it down. Because if you can create more time under tension, that tempo is going to maximize muscle breakdown and build that muscle up even more.

Hey, you guys, what's going on? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

I am your host, Nikkiey Stott. Welcome, my friends, to episode number 267. Today, this is another topic that was taken from that Instagram post I posted a couple weeks ago, where I asked you guys to give me some fresh ideas and topics that you wanted to hear me elaborate on in a podcast episode. So today, what I want to talk with you guys about is connecting your mind and your muscle.

Doing that mind-to-muscle connection when you're working out. When I broke it down and tried to think about what I wanted to talk about on this episode, it's hard to do that. For me, when I first started my journey, it was really hard for me to engage my latissimus dorsi muscle. That's our lats in our back. It's the ones by your rib cage and around your lungs in the back here.

They're big muscles. If you expand them out, they look like wings. I had no connection to this because I never worked them out before. Girls focus on legs and arms when you first start attempting to go into the weight room and think you know what you're doing. And all the Pinterest exercises I was downloading and doing were those specific muscle groups. I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning.

This one was really hard for me to connect on because I never specifically went into the gym to work out my back. So me doing pull-ups or lat pulldowns, that mind-to-muscle connection took me months to create. It's easy to understand, and I'm going to break it down with you guys here. But going into your next workout, whatever muscle group you have a hard time connecting to, take the knowledge and understanding you're going to learn today and go try to apply it in your next workout.

I want to show you guys how to feel your muscles contract. Because if you can feel your muscles contract, it's going to be a way more transformative feeling for you than chasing heavier weights. Maybe you're working out and lifting hard and hitting heavy or maxing out your sets, and you're going to fatigue, but you're still not feeling the engagement in the muscles. Maybe you're not seeing the results that you want as well. It's not about going 5 pounds heavier, 10 pounds heavier and chasing heavier weights.

It's about you feeling that mind-to-muscle connection and that contraction. That's going to be way more transformative for you. It's also going to help you not wreck your joints and cause injury. And chasing heavier weights can be so egotistical. You see the guys do it all the time in the gym. They're throwing back the weight, but their form looks terrible. When you see someone throwing back the weight in the gym, they have very poor mind-to-muscle connection. Just trust me on that. You'll understand why as I continue with the points I want to talk to you guys about.

The first thing I want to dive into is real-world terms. The mind-to-muscle connection isn't just a fitness buzzword. It's the ability to really tune into the muscle you are specifically targeting, feel it working and consciously engage it throughout the movement you are doing. I'm going to continue to use the example of lat pulldowns or pull-ups, because maybe you resonated with me on that and it's hard for you to engage and create that mind-to-muscle connection.

When you are able to tune into that specific muscle group, your back, your lats, and you feel it working, that's a mind-to-muscle connection. Think of it this way. I'm going to use another example. You're doing glute bridges, but you feel them in your lower back. Or you're doing hip thrusts and you feel them in your lower back. Or you're doing Bulgarian split squats and you feel them in your lower back. You're not tapping into the muscle that you want. You're letting other parts compensate.

Your back is overcompensating. If you're doing squats and you don't feel them in your legs and you don't feel them in your glutes, and you feel it in your lower back, you're overcompensating. How many of you have said, my back is hurting, I have pain in my lower back? You're overcompensating in some way. You're not actually creating that mind-to-muscle connection. You're not tapping into the glutes or the quads or the hamstrings. Back to the lat pulldowns. If you're feeling that in your biceps, you will feel it there, because it's a secondary muscle being worked in that movement, but you shouldn't feel it 80% in your biceps and only 20% in your back.

That should be flipped. You should be feeling it 80% in your back and 20% in your arms. So if you're only feeling it in your biceps, that means the weight is way too heavy. You're overcompensating there. You're not actually tapping into the muscle that you want. I specifically remember working with a client back in the day. You all know me from WarriorBabe and from the online world. But back in my nursing days, I first started out in a garage, like in a complex where you have your own garage for your car.

It was a townhome complex. I started training clients there. Then I moved to a studio that's about 15 minutes away from me now because we were expanding, and I was training clients in person there. One of my clients had been training her glutes for months. She could squat maybe 75 to 95 pounds, but she never felt anything except soreness.

And she never felt anything but pain in her lower back. So what we did is we deloaded her weight. We put lower weight on the bar, slowed down the tempo a little bit, and added, and I'm going to talk about this in a second, an isometric hold at the bottom and at the top. And boom, you guys. She found a whole new level of activation. That's when she started feeling that activation.

She started feeling that mind-to-muscle connection. She was connecting with her glutes. She was connecting with her quads. She was pushing through her heels. All of these small cues, and we deloaded the weight. If there's ever any time during your workout that you feel like you're not working the muscle where you should be, lower the weight. Don't chase heavier weights if you don't have the connection to the muscle down first and the form down first. And why this matters, why you should care, is because it recruits more muscle fibers when you are engaging the correct muscle.

You grow stronger faster when you are engaging the right muscle, because that muscle is getting the activation you want it to have in order to break down the fibers, and it's being worked. Then you prevent injuries. Because if it's not being worked and you're overcompensating in other areas, you're going to have bigger biceps instead of bigger lats. Or the pain in your back is going to be louder than the soreness in your quads and your glutes. And you're not going to be growing your quads and your glutes if you're having pain in your back because of activation.

I'm saying this in a couple of different ways because I want it to land. You guys get me, right? Another thing: you're preventing injuries. You're not overcompensating in other areas. And when you're focusing on the mind-muscle connection and really activating the muscle you want to, you're focused, and every single rep counts. It's not half and half. Every rep counts when you're in the motion. Okay, so that's what mind-muscle connection is and why it matters. But I want to dive a little more into the science of things with you guys at a high level so you understand.

I forget where I was reading this, but it showed that training with intention versus mindless repetition, meaning the people who go in and are just going through the movements, just going through the motions, if you actually train with intention, that's going to boost your neuromuscular activation by at least 20 to 30%.

What that means at a high level is that you are recruiting more fibers to fire, to break down and to engage, so the quad is being hyper-focused on. And when you're recruiting more fibers to be broken down, that's where more growth stimulus is happening, more stress is happening on that muscle. That's going to cause more overall growth from breaking down the muscle and then obviously you recovering afterwards.

So let me break this down into relatable nuggets for you guys. When you mentally connect with a muscle, more motor units fire. What I mean by that is you're triggering greater activation. That's you having a high level of neuromuscular efficiency. When you mentally connect with the muscle, more motor units in your body are firing off and it's creating greater adaptation in that muscle. Another way: if you ever see people pulling and having poor form, or they're going really fast through the repetitions, if that is you, slow it down. Because if you can create more time under tension, that tempo is going to maximize muscle breakdown and build that muscle up even more.

So think about time under tension in terms of a set being 30 seconds to get through 12 reps, or a set being 45 seconds to get through 12 reps because you slowed down each rep and really allowed your mind to connect with the muscle with the tempo you are doing by slowing it down, which creates more time under tension. I want you guys to always remember time under tension. If there's anything that helped me along my journey, it was asking, what is the quality of my reps? Are they sloppy and a mess, is my form terrible, am I going through them really quick, am I going through the motions? Or am I actually placing enough time under tension, slowing it down, so the quality of my reps is really strong?

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There's another scientific term, which is isometrics. I mentioned that a second ago when I was talking about the client I was working with. It's holding a contraction. When you hold a contraction, either at the top or at the bottom, you're building tension. That teaches your brain to tap into the muscle that you didn't even know you had.

So let me take the back muscle again. One, time under tension, slowing down my reps. But then two, at the bottom, I would think that I had a string connected from my elbow to the side of my rib cage. At the bottom, I would allow that string to be really, really loose and I would hold it. And then I would let go. At the top, that string would tighten and it would have more tension on it. At the top of the movement with a lat pulldown, or even a pull-up, you can think of it the same way. I would re-engage and hold tight to that string. I would tap into my back muscle, and I would pull that string down again to hit my rib cage. So it's slowing down the top and slowing down the bottom, and then making the rep have quality and tension behind it with time under tension.

With those little scientific tidbits, not only are you going to be more connected and have better results than lifting heavier without feeling the muscle being worked, but you're also saving your joints from, let me just call it, ego loading. You're saving your joints from just throwing some weight up there. It's like you going to full body-weight pull-ups in week two of ever doing pull-ups.

Do you think you're going to have good form? Or are you going to try to get through the rep because you just want the rep to count? That's not the way you should be looking at it. That's egotistical, right? It's pride. It's, I'm going to knock out this pull-up because I really want to get my pull-up game up. I want to have five pull-ups, or whatever number you want to work towards. While I love that, it's the intention behind it that matters. Can I connect with the muscle? Can I activate the muscle? Can I slow down my rep and have good quality form? Can I approach this from an understanding and wisdom standpoint, knowing this is going to take time, and consistently apply the methods I'm hearing on this episode to my future attempts to connect to whatever muscle group I have a hard time connecting with?

Okay. So you guys get what mind-to-muscle connection is and why it matters. And then some scientifical, there I go with scientifical again. I'm just going to make scientifical a word. Some scientific terms and understandings behind methods you can apply to the workouts you're doing: time under tension, isometric holds, and making sure there's quality and efficiency to mentally connect with the muscle each time you're doing your rep.

But how do you actually do it? You guys know I like to give you takeaways. Some of these steps may sound like I'm a broken record, and it may sound like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But actually going and doing them is the hardest thing to do sometimes. What I want to say is you should warm up with intention. That's sometimes hard to do because you just want to get into the workout and be done.

You only have 45 minutes, and if there's one thing to skip, I'm going to skip my warmups. But guys, if there's one thing you shouldn't skip, it's your warmups. For me this morning, my hamstrings were so tight. I play basketball Monday nights in a women's league, and I did legs Monday morning. I don't know why I did that to myself. So my hamstring was really tight going into the gym this morning. I got on the leg press, because I've been doing two leg exercises at the beginning of each workout.

Let me give you a little background. You know that I do a lot of full-body workouts, meaning I intentionally put a leg exercise in each of my workouts for the week. Lately, what I've been doing is that, but with a push-pull kind of rest of my workout. So I'm taking two to three leg exercises and putting them at the beginning of each of my workouts. Then I'll go into shoulders, biceps, pull, push, chest, back, whatever. It's also a mind thing. I start off my workout really hard and it's mentally so satisfying for me. Then the rest of my workout is, okay, I'm in the smaller muscle groups, and I should give them the amount of effort that I gave to my legs. Right? I don't know, it's mental for me. But anyway, back to it. This morning I warmed up with intention.

I know that if I'm going to do a leg press and I want to really load it up, have weight that is challenging for me but with good quality reps, one, my hamstrings are going to resist me from doing good quality reps. And two, I could injure myself. So I just take two to three minutes, guys. Whether it's your back or whatever leg muscle, if you know you're going to train a muscle you have a hard time engaging, warm it up. Take two to three minutes with body weight exercises. Whatever exercise you're doing first, just do it with body weight first. Lat pulldowns? Okay, maybe only put half the weight on the stack, do that for two sets and warm up. Keep it high rep. Keep it low intensity. That will equate to you having good muscle engagement.

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All right, let's get back to the show. That's one method you could do. The second thing you could do is use tempo reps. For lat pulldowns, maybe it's a three-second lowering, then a one-second pause at the bottom, then zero on the way up, and a one-second pause at the top. So it's three, one, zero, one. The main thing is keeping the tension in the lowering part of the movement so that you can feel the muscle engaging. Slow it down and focus on the mind-to-muscle connection and contraction for whatever muscle group you need to work on.

Another thing is isometric holds. If you're doing squats, pause and hold at the 90-degree position. Allow that burn in the muscle to be felt, because you're creating time under tension in that isometric hold. You're adding more time under tension to that rep, and that's going to help you build connection. It's going to help you build stability as well.

Another one that really helped me with my back was visualizing the burn. Feeling my back on fire and thinking of the muscle pulling the weight. When I started to really engage my back, I wasn't thinking about my hands pulling the weight. I would forget about my hands being on the bar and think, okay, my back is pulling this weight. And you can do that for literally any exercise. Squatting: okay, my quads are on fire, and my quads are the ones pushing up this weight. Nothing else. Or my quads and my glutes are pushing up this weight. Not my back, not my shoulders, not my arms helping with the bar, but the muscle that's actually doing it.

And this is a little more advanced, but if you can close your eyes mid-rep, that can actually help you feel more. If you close your eyes during the lat pulldown, that will make you feel more. If you close your eyes during the squat, if you have good stability and you're safe, maybe you have the safety bars beneath you in case you need to drop it or you get a little off balance, that will help you feel more. Trust me on that. You take out the sense of sight and now you're just left with feeling. I think those are some solid takeaways. Visualize the burn. Isometric holds. Tempo reps. Warming up.

Another one I would say is check in on your form. Mid-set, ask yourself, where am I feeling this? Where is the tension? Is it in my lower back? Okay, this next set I'm going to drop my weight. If it's not the target muscle, adjust your form, adjust your weight, or cue yourself with the steps I just said. Think about your muscle being on fire. Think about the muscle actually pulling the weight. Close your eyes mid-rep and actually feel the muscle working.

All of these are really good cues. That's why it's so important to be mindful during your workout. You can't be in la-la land. You are showing up to work out and you're going to give yourself the best workout you can for that day. You shouldn't be scrolling on your phone, sending text messages, looking at Instagram or looking at your emails. No phone. Be in the moment, in the movement. People know you're working out for 45 minutes to an hour. That's your hour to yourself, so make it what it is.

Give these tactics a try. For example, warm up on glute day. Do body weight glute bridges, and maybe add a 30-second hold at the top. Then go into your primary lift, which would be a squat. Three down, one pause, one up, and then a zero hold, meaning you're going right back into the three-second down. So it would be a 3-1-1-0 tempo. Then, on your next exercise, have controlled hip thrusts, maybe with a two-second hold at the top. And let's say your next exercise is cable kickbacks. Do that with more visualization, more feel. Close your eyes. Imagine your glutes burning.

By conditioning your brain to feel first, you're restructuring the foundation of muscle growth for yourself. That's why it can be such a huge transformational aspect of your engagement with your muscles. The more you engage properly with the muscle you want to, the more you're restructuring the way you are going to continue to build those muscles moving forward, by engaging and conditioning your brain to feel the muscle first.

And like I said at the beginning, it's easy to understand, but it's not always easy to do. So what I want to make sure you walk away from this episode with is recognizing the ways you can trap yourself in common pitfalls. Like the ego lifting I mentioned earlier. If you skip connection to hit higher numbers, that's ego lifting. If you are just throwing weight back so you can look like you're having an intense workout, and it's not really connecting or you don't have good form, that's ego lifting. I used to joke around, and I've probably said this in an earlier podcast, if you see people being monkeys in the gym, they ain't engaging. They are overcompensating in a lot of ways there.

So how you fix that is just drop the weight until you can feel the target muscle being worked. Trust the feel. Forget about the number. Guys, sometimes I'm lifting 10-pound weights in there. It's because my muscles feel the 10-pound weights better than they're ever going to feel a 25-pound weight.

Another tip: if you are stuck in your head, then you're not in your body. If you're overthinking everything, you're not in your body, you're in your head. How to fix that is simple cues to yourself. Squeeze my glutes. If I'm in the movement and I want to focus on the burn, a cue could be squeeze my glutes, squeeze my quads, squeeze my back muscles when I'm in the tense position. You don't need "I need to focus on my quads squeezing here." You don't need long cues. Just squeeze my glutes, squeeze my back, squeeze my quads, squeeze my X, Y, and Z.

If you're half-assing it, if you think, I'm just going through the motions, or I'm mildly fatigued, and you think that's muscle burnout, it's not. Pick a tough rep, say rep 8 or 10, and make sure you feel that rep. What I'm saying here is maybe the first five or six are easy, but 7, 8, 9, 10, you should feel. So don't just go through the motions. Don't just half-ass it. Make sure those last reps count and that you feel them activating the muscle. You feel the muscle burning.

Okay, so this mind-to-muscle connection, which has been thrown around the fitness space, is not a gimmick. It's literally a very sustainable strength-building concept and upgrade that can align for you perfectly if you understand it, grasp it and put it into action. Because it helps you train smart. It helps you train consistently. It helps you train without ego.

Okay, so start implementing. Start with whatever muscle you feel you can't engage because it's hard for you to engage. I hope you can take away these steps from today and go implement them. You will feel your workouts so differently and your body will respond so differently. So this week, choose an exercise. It could be a squat. It could be a lat pulldown. It could be a lunge. It could be a glute bridge. Just choose one exercise each day you work out and do it with intention. Warm up, feeling the muscle. I would say do it for the first exercise you're doing that day. Warm up, feeling the muscle. Use a tempo and a pause, and visualize that muscle being on fire. Visualize it burning. And one other thing I'm going to leave you with: don't increase weight this week. Don't. Maybe not even next week. Just increase your feeling.

All right. And what I love most lately is you guys have been screenshotting these episodes and giving me feedback on what resonated with you the most, or a takeaway that lit up a light bulb in your mind, and you've been sharing on Instagram. I love that because I love engaging and starting conversations with you. I just love you. I appreciate you sharing these episodes with other people. So what I would love for you to do with this one is take that challenge I just described: choose an exercise this week, whatever it may be, warm up feeling the muscle, use the tempo and the pause, visualize the burn, and let me know how it goes. Screenshot this. Tag me. Send me a DM. Put it on your story. Share it. Let me know how it goes, and I'll chat it up with you in the DMs.

All right, y'all. I appreciate you. If this episode lit up something, share it, screenshot it, share it with a friend. Do all the things. I appreciate you doing that and sharing it with other people. We're so close to one million downloads, guys. We're about 25,000 away, and I can't wait to celebrate that milestone with you. But it's all because of you sharing it and putting it out there, and all the consistency and loyalty you have in listening to this show every single day. Love you guys so much. Appreciate you. I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

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