What do you think about when you’re exercising?

Does your mind wander, or are you fully focused in on the action?

For endurance and lengthy exercise sessions, zoning out and distracting yourself may sometimes be helpful! However, for shorter workouts, or activities involving reps, circuits or intervals, focusing in on body movement is a sure way to get the most from your workout.

Body awareness can aid progress and help prevent injuries, and the good news is, it’s an easy skill to learn. It also brings relevance to each workout and acts as a reminder of why you’re doing it and what you’re trying to achieve. Start to notice how your body feels, does today seem easier or more challenging than your last session, is one side of your body stronger than the other, do you have restricted or greater movement in one area.

Use your senses to pay attention to your body, this will help to ‘fire up’ the muscles you are targeting. Recruit the use of sight and sound to aid awareness. If you’re working out inside and have access to mirrors, don’t be shy to use them. Check your body alignment and position, check the stability of joints that are meant to stay static, check your range of motion. If you’re outside, on a run for example, periodically clock yourself in a window reflection, are you upright with shoulders over hips and recruiting a good stride pattern. Look, and notice.

Sound can assist in multiple ways too. Listen to your body by acknowledging your breathing rate and use this to your advantage. For strength training, exhaling on the lifting (concentric) phase and inhaling on the lowering (eccentric) phase will help muscle output. For cardio intervals listen to how quickly you recover in rest periods and try to maintain a steady breathing rate throughout the work-time. If you’re in a group setting with an instructor, listen to their verbal set ups and cues. A good instructor will always verbally (and visually) demo exercises and frequently prompt you throughout your training, to keep your form on point.

If getting stronger is an aspiration, then numerous studies have shown that a mind-muscle connection does in fact increase activation of the targeted muscle. Mind-muscle connection is the conscious effort to contract and lengthen a muscle. For example, in a bicep curl, consciously think about the bicep contraction as you lift the weight and visualise its lengthening as you lower the weight. Tapping into this muscle movement will target and activate your bicep muscle fibres more effectively and increase your chances of muscle growth.

Next time you head into a workout, stop, look, listen, and tune into yourself. You might be surprised about what you discover and the improvements you can make with a little focus and attention to detail.