Eyes Wide Shut

It may sounds odd, but closing your eyes during certain exercises can enhance the feel of this movement pattern and allow you to better tap into your mind-muscle connection. It's all about sensory input.

The mind-muscle connection (MMC) isn't just a mythical beast that gets talked about in bodybuilding circles. It's a real life neuromuscular phenomenon that many veteran lifters have learned to tap into. But here's the limiting factor of the MMC: you must know the muscle you're trying to contract actually exists before you can reap the benefits.

For example, during the face pull, the goal is to maximize the activation and MMC of the posterior delts and other muscles of the upper back, helping move the upper arms into horizontal abduction and external rotation. While there are nearly 20 scapular muscles that influence the movement of the shoulder blade, when it comes to improving MMC, we must focus on just one – the posterior delt.

You need to be able to focus your mental energies on the feel of the muscle contracting on the peaking portion of the movement. Taking a huge sensory player out of the equation by simply closing your eyes can enhance this.

Without your visual fields in play, you've cut down on the amount of total sensory input feeding into your system. This gives you a better chance to improve mental acuity and focus.

Give this tip some time to work. It's not something that happens overnight. Improving the MMC with the eyes-closed technique is a skill that needs to be practiced.