Neuromuscular Activation - The Key to Massive Toned Biceps

First of all, why is Testosterone so important to building muscle

Testosterone is a male sex hormone that is found naturally in your body. This hormone helps in stimulating muscle growth as well as protein synthesis. Because testosterone stimulates muscle growth, it helps in the development of lean muscle in the body, which is what gives you that boost of power that so many body builders and athletes need when doing bicep workouts. This in turn means you can work out longer and with more intensity, thus building even bigger stronger muscles.

One thing to always remember is that the more lean muscle that you have on your body, the more calories it will burn each day. The more calories that your body burns, the more fat your body burns. See the cycle here.

Now, how can we get our Bodies to Produce Testosterone?

There are many bicep workout gurus out there who suggest taking testosterone supplements, personally I think that supplements for the most part are a waist of time and money, but hey, that's just me. I have found that one of the best was to get your body to naturally produce testosterone and growth hormone is by doing more compound exercises with a high level of neuromuscular activation.

Now, for many this raises another question, what is neuromuscular activation?

The neuromuscular system is a combination of the nervous system and the muscular system. Basically, your nerves and muscles working are working together. After you break your arm, your physiotherapist will often get you to do bicep workouts that improve neuromuscular function.

Now how to maximize the potential activation of your neuromuscular system?

There are certain exercises that provide more neuromuscular activation than others. Ever wonder why when you go to physio, they don't often get you start in on the bicep workouts by lifting a bunch of weight? It's because you are only using one specific limb and only working on one specific muscle, your bicep.

Since the neuromuscular system combines both the nervous system and the muscular system, there really are 2 ways that you can change the activation level of your neuromuscular system (what a mouth full). For the muscular system, do more compound exercises rather than isolation exercises. Compound exercises are anything that works more than one muscle grouping at a time, for example when doing bicep workouts try a pull up or a dip. For the nervous system side, do more exercises that require more control and focus of your mind, for example, the plank or anything with a yoga ball.

Since the neuromuscular system is the combination of the nervous and muscular system, the more involvement of each of those systems an exercise requires, the more neuromuscular activation it provides. Therefore there are two ways to affect neuromuscular activation: one is to increase the muscular system involvement. You do that by choosing compound exercises over isolation exercises, since compound exercises work more muscles at once. The other is to increase the degree to which your nervous system is involved. And you do that by choosing exercises that require more control, more focus, more involvement of your mind. When you do a compound exercise that also requires the most control and focus, you achieve maximum neuromuscular activation.

If you think about it, it makes a bunch of sense. When you are doing your bicep workouts, you think of doing 2-armed curls, 1 armed cable curls, isolation curls, these are all great bicep workouts but they are isolation exercises. Next time you set out to the gym try throwing in "chin ups" into your routine. This is a prime compound exercise. When you are doing a chin up, your are not just working your bicep muscles, but your chest, back and abs. This is a complete core workout on top of the desired isolation exercise.

The ideal routine to maximize your neuromuscular activation potential should comprise mainly of body weight exercises; such as pull ups, push ups, chin ups, TRX straps, ect. Click Here! for more. You can also do free weight exercises but try to do them using yoga balls instead of benches so you really need to focus on your stability.

The higher the degree of neuromuscular activation the more effective the exercise, which makes for faster routines because you don't need several exercises for each muscle group in order to achieve great results and you need fewer sets of each exercise. This also allows you to work out less often because you don't need several workouts to deliver great results. Those routines will give men a strong, solid, naturally muscular and masculine looking body, and give women a toned, feminine, well-shaped body.

Hope that this is of interest.