Yeah, the title on this one might sound a little “hypey”, but I promise this isn’t some silly gimmick… and it doesn’t involve pre-workout supplements, pills or powders of any kind.
Today, I’m going to share with you a legitimate, science-based technique that will allow you to instantly add around 5-10 pounds to all of your major compound exercises in the gym, and squeeze out an extra rep or two on your smaller isolation lifts.
It’s dead simple, and requires almost zero effort to employ.
Here it is…
From now on, whenever you perform a set of any exercise, lock your gaze onto a single point in front of you and do NOT let your eyes wander or the positioning of your head to change.
Pour ALL of your intensity, drive and motivation into that one point of vision as you crank out each rep, and maintain it with full focus until your set is over.
How exactly does this help to increase your strength and power in the gym?
It all has to do with “proprioception”, which is a process used by your central nervous system to give you an automatic sensation of where all the different parts of your body are located relative to each other in any given moment.
For example, if I asked you right now to touch your left ear, or your right elbow, you’d instantly know where to move your hand in order to locate that body part without even having to think about it. It’s something we take completely for granted, but without proprioception, this wouldn’t be possible.
Now, here’s the important thing to realize when it comes to performing any given exercise in the gym…
Every time your eyes move around or your head positioning changes, your body must “reset” proprioception to determine where all the parts of your body are now located.
If you were looking straight ahead and then turned your head completely to the left, the relative positioning of all the different parts of your body would instantly change. (This is why it becomes much harder to maintain your balance if your eyes and head are constantly in motion)
So, by keeping your vision locked onto a single point in front of you and not allowing your head to move around as you lift and lower the weights, proprioception remains constant and does not have to continually reset itself.
This increases the overall efficiency at which you can move the resistance, since your body can now place 100% of its focus on simply powering the weight up and down without these constant “resets” in proprioception getting in the way.
The overwhelming majority of lifters in the gym are completely unaware of this, and if employed properly, this technique should provide you with an instant boost to your overall strength levels.
Don’t expect anything too crazy, but a 5-10 pound increase on major compound exercises is not uncommon, along with an extra rep or two on smaller isolation lifts.
Since achieving muscular hypertrophy is all about progressively overloading your muscles with greater and greater amounts of resistance over time, the instant boost that this technique provides is definitely worth it.
