Don't Chase Muscle Activation
Jun 08, 2022
How do you activate muscles?
We’ve all seen that person on Instagram trying to achieve perfect muscle “Activation”
... Maybe they are selling the secret to the perfect glute shape in the form of a 3 page PDF. #entrepreneur
... Maybe they have the perfect cable, 3 band, 2 dumbbell upside-down face pull variation to become a flying unicorn with bulletproof shoulders.
I digress….
Here’s what science says about muscle activation:
There are 3 main contributors to muscle growth (Schoenfeld research):
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Mechanical Tension
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Muscle Damage
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Metabolic Stress
However, none of these are directly related to high % EMG activation.
In fact, focusing on doing the bodyweight glute exercise with the highest contribution from glute max is similar to picking the salad with the most folate.
(Yea that could help I guess…. But are you even eating enough calories?)
Progressive overload matters more when it comes to muscles
To make a meaningful change in strength, it’s more important to focus on achieving progressive overload, with more volume or more load on an exercise (rather than doing endless reps of an exercise that you can’t even load because it has 6% higher %MVIC in a 15 participant EMG Study).
There’s nothing wrong with doing “Activation” exercises. I program them for 4 minutes at the start of the glute-focused group fitness classes I program. But don’t miss the forest for the trees!
You need to LOAD and work at a rep range that is actually challenging. Go ahead and activate, but realize that it’s just a small piece of a training program.
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