Why Your Muscles Aren’t Growing (Even with Heavy Lifts)

00:00If you ever see people like going, like 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 Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And 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.

00:38I am your host, Nikkie Stott. And welcome, my friends, to episode number 267. And today, this is another topic that was taken from that Instagram post that I posted a couple weeks ago, where I asked you guys to give me some fresh ideas and some topics that you guys wanted to hear me elaborate on on the episode in a podcast episode. And so today, what I want to talk with you guys about is connecting your mind and your muscle.

01:10Doing that mind to muscle connection when you're working out. Because I think that's, you know, 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. Like for me, when I first started my journey, it was really hard for me to engage my latissimus dorsi muscle. And what that is, is our lats in our back. It's those ones by like your rib cage and around your lungs in the back here.

01:40And 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 like attempting to go into the weight room and think that you know what you're doing. And all the Pinterest exercises that I was downloading and doing, you know, were those specific muscle groups. I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning.

02:11But 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 me doing lat pull-downs, like that mind to muscle connection took me months to create. It's easy to understand. Like I'm going to break it down with you guys here. But the thing is going into your next workout, whatever muscle group that you have a hard time connecting to, take this knowledge and understanding that you're going to learn from today. And go try to apply it in your next workout.

02:42Because I want to show you guys how to learn 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 guys than chasing heavier weights. Because if you're, you know, working out and lifting hard and hitting, you know, heavy or maxing out your sets and you're going to fatigue. But like you're still not feeling the engagement in the muscles. Maybe you're not really feeling, seeing the results that you want to as well. It's not about chasing, going to 5 pounds heavier, 10 pounds heavier and chasing heavier weights.

03:17It's about you feeling that mind to muscle connection and that contraction. Because that's going to be way more transformative than you. And it's also going to help you to not wreck your joints and to cause injury. And also like 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 on with the points I want to talk to you guys about.

03:52The first thing that I want to dive into you guys is like real world terms. Like the mind to muscle connection isn't just like a fitness buzzword. It's the ability to really tune into the muscle that you are specifically targeting and like feel it working and consciously engage it throughout the movement that you are doing. So I'm just going to continue to use the example of lat pull downs or pull ups because maybe you guys resonated with me on that. That's something that's hard for you to engage and create that mind to muscle connection.

04:26When you are able to tune into that specific muscle group, you're in your back, your lats, and you feel it working. That's a mind to muscle connection. Like think of it this way. You guys are doing I'm going to use another example. You're doing like 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.

04:56Your 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, you're overcompensating if you feel it in your lower back. How many of you guys have said I just my back is it's 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. Again, to the lat pulldowns. If you guys are feeling that in your biceps, while you will feel it there, because it's a secondary muscle that's being worked in that movement, you shouldn't feel it like 80% in your muscle and only 20% in your back.

05:36That 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 that weight is way too heavy. You're overcompensating there. You're not actually tapping into the muscle that you want. I specifically actually remember working with a client, guys, back in the day. You guys all know me from Warrior Babe and from the online world. But when I was back in my nursing days and also working in a first started out in a garage, like in a complex, how you have your own garage for your car.

06:13It was like a townhome complex. Started training clients there. And then I moved to a studio that's like 15 minutes away from me now because we were expanding. And I was training clients in person there. And when I was training one of my clients who had been training like her glutes for months, she could squat like maybe 75 to 95 pounds. But she never felt anything except like soreness.

06:45And she never felt anything but pain in her lower back. So what we did is like we deloaded her weight. We put lower weight on the bar. Slowed down the tempo a little bit. Added a little bit more of like, and I'm going to talk about this in a second. But more of like a tempo to like an isometric hold at the bottom and at the top. And boom, you guys. Like she found a whole new level of activation. That's when, like when she started feeling that activation.

07:16She started feeling that mind to muscle connection. She was connecting with her glutes. She was connecting with her quad. She was pushing through her heels. Like all of these small cues that we were, and deloaded the weight. Like 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 then why this matters, like why you should care about that is because it recruits more muscle fibers when you are engaging the correct muscle.

07:52You grow stronger faster when you are engaging the right muscle because that muscle is getting the activation that you want it to have in order to break down the fibers. And it's being worked. Then you prevent the injuries. Because like if it's not being worked and you're overcompensating in other areas, you're going to have bigger biceps and you do bigger lats. Or your pain, your pain in your back is going to be louder than the pain, than the soreness in your quads and your glutes. And that's not, you're not going to be growing your quads and your glutes if you're having pain in your back because of activation.

08:27Like I'm saying this in a couple of different ways because I want it to land. But you guys get me, right? But another thing, you're preventing injuries. You're not overcompensating in other areas. And then you make every single, like when you're focusing on the mind and muscle connection and you're really activating the muscle that you want to, you're focused, like every single rep counts when you're doing it. It's not like half and half, like every rep counts when you're in the motion. Okay, so that's like why mind and muscle, what it is and why it matters. But I want to dive a little bit more into like the science of things with you guys at a high level so you understand.

09:03I forget where I was reading this, but it showed that with that training and nutrition versus like mindless repetition, like you actually having, I'm not training, not nutrition, sorry, training with intention versus like mindless repetition, meaning like the people that go in and they're just going through the movements and just going through the motions. Like if you actually train with intention, that's going to boost your neuromuscular activation by at least 20 to 30%.

09:35What that means is high level is that you are recruiting and bringing more fibers into fire and to break down and to engage into like the quad is being hyper-focused on. And when you're recruiting more fibers to be broken down, that's where more growth stimuli is happening, more stress is happening on that muscle. And that's going to cause for more overall growth for the breaking down the muscle and then obviously you recovering afterwards.

10:11So let me break this down to like relatable nuggets for you guys. When you mentally connect with a muscle, more motor units fire. And what I mean by that is like you're triggering greater activation. That's like you having a high level of neuromuscular efficiency. When you mentally connect with the muscle, there are more motor units in your body that are firing off and it's creating greater adaptation in that muscle. Another way is like if you, because if you ever see people like going, like pulling and having poor form or they're going really fast through the repetitions,

10:47slow like 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 you really allowed your mind to connect with the muscle,

11:19with the tempo that you are engaged, 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 what is the quality of my reps? Is it that they're sloppy and a mess and my form is terrible and I'm going through them really quick? I'm going through the motions? Or am I actually placing enough time under tension? I'm slowing it down and the quality of my reps is really strong.

11:51Hey, while you're listening, if you're getting value from this episode, take a moment to tap that review button or share this podcast with a friend. It's a small gesture that goes a long way in helping more women find their way to feeling stronger and more confident in their skin. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to support this show. And then there's another scientific term, which is like isometrics. I mentioned that a second ago when I was talking about the client that I was working with, which is holding a contraction.

12:26And when you hold a contraction, either at the top or at the bottom, you're building tension. And that teaches your brain to tap into the muscle that you didn't even know that you were working. So let me or even know that you had. So let me take into consideration the back muscle again. One, time under tension, slowing down my reps. But then two, at the bottom, what I would do is I would think that I had a string connected from my elbow to the side of my rib cage. And at the bottom, I would allow that string to be really, really loose and I would hold it.

13:00And then I would let go. And at the top, that string would tighten. And it would have more tension on it. And the top of the movement with a lat pull down or even a pull up. You can think of the same way like this. Is 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 like slowing down the top and slowing down the bottom. And then making the rep have quality and tension behind it with time under tension.

13:34Those little scientific tidbits, not only are you going to be more connected and you're going to have better results than you lifting heavier without feeling the muscle being worked, but you're also saving your joints from, let me just call it like ego loading. Like you're saving your joints from just throwing some weight up there on a, like you, it's like you going to full body pull ups in week two of you ever doing pull ups.

14:11Do you think you're going to have good form? 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. That's like an ego, egotistical, right? It's like pride. It's like, I'm going to knock out this pull up because I've been, I really want to get my pull up game. I want to have five pull ups or whatever the number is that you want to work towards. While I love that, it's the intention that matters behind it. Can I connect with the muscle? Can I activate the muscle? Can I slow down my rep and have good quality form? Can I, can I approach this, uh, from a understanding and a wisdom standpoint that I know this is going to take time and I'm going to consistently apply these methods here that I'm hearing on this episode into my future attempts to connect to maybe whatever muscle group that you have a hard time connecting with.

15:03Okay. So you guys get why, like it all matters. Like you get why, what mind to muscle connection is, why it matters. And then some scientifical, there you go with scientifical again. I'm just going to make scientifical word. Some scientific terms and understandings behind some methods at which you could apply to the workouts that you're doing. Time under tension, isometric holds, um, making sure that there's quality and efficiency to tap in, to mentally connect with the muscle each time that you're doing your rep.

15:37But how do you actually, you guys know that I like to give you like takeaways, like how do you actually do it? And some of these steps may sound like, uh, like I'm a broken record and it may sound like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But like actually going and doing them is the hardest thing to do sometimes. It's like sometimes you like, especially with the, like what I want to say is you guys should warm up with intention. Like that's sometimes hard to do because you just want to get into the workout and be done.

16:10And, and 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. Like for me this morning, I, my hamstrings were so tight. Um, from, I play basketball Monday nights with a woman's league and I did legs Monday morning. I don't know why I did that to myself. Um, so my hamstring was really tight going into the gym this morning. And I was like, I got on the leg press and I'm like, cause I, I've been doing like two

16:41leg exercises at the beginning of each. Let me just give you a little background. Y'all know that I do a lot of full body exercises or workouts, which meaning I, I, I intentionally put like a leg exercise in each of my workouts for the week. Like lately, what I've been doing is doing that, but doing like a push pull, um, kind of rest of my workout. So I'm taking two leg exercises, two to three, and I'm putting them at the beginning of each

17:12of my workouts. And then I'll go into, uh, it's also like a mind thing. Like, and then I'll go into like shoulders, biceps, pull, push, whatever, chest, um, back. Like, but it's also like, I start off my workout really hard and it's mentally so satisfying for me. And then the rest of my workout is like, okay, I'm in the smaller muscle groups and like, I should give it them that amount of effort that I gave to my legs. Right. I don't know. It's mental for me, but anyway, back to it. So I, I'm warming up with more, like this morning I warmed up with intention.

17:42I know that if I'm going to go do a leg press exercise and I want to really load up the, like have weight that is challenging for me, but good quality reps, my hamstrings are going to resist me from doing good quality reps one. And then two, I could injure myself. So I just take two to three minutes guys. Like if it's your back, whatever leg muscle, whatever, if you know that you're going to train a muscle that you have a hard time engaging, warm it up. Take two to three minutes with like body weight exercises, like whatever exercise you're doing first, just do it with body weight first. Lap pull downs. Okay. Maybe only put half the weight on the stack and do that for two sets and warm up.

18:19Keep it high rep. Keep it low intensity. Like that, that will equate to you having a good muscle engagement. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, warrior babe is here for you at warrior B.

18:49We've helped over 18,000 women, just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing. And more imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warrior babe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warrior babe.com forward slash apply.

19:21All right, let's get back to the show. That's one method that you could do. The second thing that you could do is using tempo reps. So for lap pulldowns, maybe it's a three second lowering and then it's a one second pause at the bottom and then it's a zero up. So it's a three one zero or three one zero up pause at the top one. So three one zero one. And the main thing is just keeping the tension, like keeping the tension in the lowering movement

19:58of it so that you can feel the muscle engaging. Like slow it down, focus on the mind to muscle connection and contraction or whatever muscle group it is that you need to work on. Another thing is the isometric holds, pausing if you're doing squats, pausing and holding at the 90 degree degree like flex or the 90 degree position. Allow that burn in the muscle to be felt because you're creating that 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.

20:31It's going to help you build stability too as well. Another one that really helped me with my back was I would be visualizing the burn. So like feeling my back on fire and think of the muscle pulling the weight. Like 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 I'd be like, okay, my back is pulling this weight. And you can do that for literally any exercises.

21:03Squatting. Okay. My quads are on fire, but my quads are the one 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 to help with the bar, but the muscle that's actually doing it. And then this is a little bit more advanced, but if you can close your eyes mid rep, that can actually help you to feel more. So like if you close your eyes during the lat pull down, that will make you feel more.

21:35If you close your eyes during the squat, if you have good stability and you're safe, maybe you have the bars beneath you in case you need to drop it or you get a little off balance. If you close your eyes mid rep, that will help you feel more. Trust me on that. It's like you take out all sensory of sight and now you're just left to feeling. I think those are some solid takeaways. Visualize the burn. Isometric holds. Tempo reps.

22:06Warming up. Another one that I would say is like check in on your form. Like mid set, if you can ask yourself, where am I feeling this? Where is the tension? Is it in my lower back? Okay, this next set that I'm going to drop my weight. If it's not the target muscle, adjust your form, adjust your weight or cue yourself to do the steps I just said. Like 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.

22:41All of these are really good cues. That's why it's so important to be so mindful during your workout. It's not about like, again, you can't be in la la land. Like you are showing up to work out and you're going to give it the best workout that you can give yourself for that day. You shouldn't be scrolling on your phone, sending text messages, looking at Instagram, you know, looking at your emails. You should be no phone in the moment, in the movement.

23:12Like people know that you're working out for 45 minutes to an hour. That's your hour to yourself. So make it, make it for what it is. Like give these tactics a try. For an example, warm up on glute day. Warm up. Do body weight glute bridges. And then maybe add like a 30 second hold at the top. Go into your first primary squat. Or your primary lift, which is would be a squat. Three down. One pause. One up. And then a zero hold, which meaning you're going right back into the three second down.

23:44So it would be a 3-1-1-0 tempo. Have controlled like hip thrusts in the movement. On your next exercise, if you say that you're going to do that. Controlled hip thrusts with maybe a hold at the top. You're holding for two seconds. And then maybe let's say that your next exercise is cable kickbacks. Just do that with like more visualization. More feel. Close your eyes. Imagine your glutes burning. By you conditioning your brain to feel first.

24:15You're restructuring the foundation of muscle growth for yourself. And that can be, that's why it can be such a huge transformational aspect of your engagement with your muscles because the more that you engage properly with the muscle that you want to, you're restructuring the way that you are going to continue to build that or those muscles moving forward. By you engaging and conditioning your brain to feel the muscle first. And when I said this at the beginning, like it's easy to understand, but it's not easy,

24:50always easy to do. And so what I want to make sure that you guys walk away from from this episode is recognizing the ways in which you can trap yourself into just like common pitfalls. Like the ego lifting that I mentioned earlier. If you skip connection to hit higher numbers, that's ego lifting. If you are just like throwing weight back so that 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 on, maybe I've probably said this in an earlier podcast, like if you

25:24see people like being monkeys in the gym, they ain't engaging. Man, they are overcompensating in a lot of ways there. So how you fix that is just drop the weight until you can feel that 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 is if you are stuck in your head, then you're not in your body.

25:54So if you're overthinking everything, you're not in your body, you're in your head. So how to fix that is simple cues to yourself. Squeeze my glutes. If I'm in the movement and I want you guys to focus on the burn, a cue could be like squeeze my glutes, squeeze my quads, squeeze my back muscles in the, when I'm in the tense position. Okay, you don't need like, I need to focus on my quads squeezing here. You don't need long muscles. Just squeeze my glutes, squeeze my back, squeeze my quads, squeeze my X, Y, and Z.

26:27If you are half-assed doing it, if you think like, I'm just going through emotions or like I'm mildly fatigued. If you think that's muscle burnout, it's not. Pick a tough rep. Say it's like rep 8 or 10. That makes that. And then like make sure you feel that rep. So like maybe the first five, what I'm saying here is like the first five or six are easy, but like 7, 8, 9, 10, you should feel that. So don't just go through the motions. Don't just half-ass it.

26:58Make sure that those last reps count and that you feel them activating the muscle. You feel the muscle burning. Okay, so this mind to muscle, like what's being, what is or has been once thrown around the fitness space, it's not a gimmick. It's like, it's literally a very sustainable strength building concept and upgrade that can align for you very perfectly if you understand this, grasp it and put it into action. Because it helps you to train smart. It helps you to train consistent. It helps you to train without ego.

27:29Okay, so start implementing. Start whatever muscle you feel like you can't engage because it's hard for you to engage. I hope that you guys can take away these steps from today and go implement them. You will feel your workouts so much differently and your body will respond so much differently. So whatever it is this week, choose an exercise this week. 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 that you're going to work out and do it with intention. Warm up, feeling the muscle.

28:00I would say do it for the first set of exercises that you were 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 thing else I'm going to leave you guys with is don't increase weight this week. Don't. Maybe even not next week. Just increase your feeling. All right. And then what I love most, guys, lately, you guys have been screenshotting this, these episodes, and you've been giving me like feedback to what resonated you the most or a takeaway that

28:33you had that lit up a light bulb in your mind. And you've been sharing on Instagram. I love that because I love engaging and I love starting conversations with you guys. And I just love you. I appreciate you guys sharing these episodes with other people. So what I would love for you guys to do with this one is take that challenge, what I just said, choosing an exercise this week, whatever it may be, warm up, feeling the muscle, using the tempo and the pause and visualizing the burn and let me know how it goes. Screenshot this. Tag me. Send me a DM. Put on your story.

29:04Share it. Let me know how it goes. And I'll chat it up with you guys in DMs. All right, y'all. I appreciate you guys. If this episode lit up something, share it, screenshot it, you know, share it with a friend. Do all the things. I appreciate you guys doing that and sharing it with other people because it just continues to. We're so close to one million downloads, guys. We're like 25,000 away. And I can't wait to celebrate that milestone with you guys. But it's all because of you for sharing it and putting it out there and all the times, all the consistent, all the just like loyalty that you guys have to listen to this episode

29:36every single day. Love you guys so much. Appreciate you guys. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. Peace out. Real quick. If this episode resonated with you or gave you the push that you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review. Share the podcast with someone who might need it and help me keep spreading the word. Your feedback not only helps to show grow, but it might just be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so, so much for your support.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.