Don’t Blame it on Genetics

The problem: You think you have genetically inferior body parts

Just let me warn you ahead of time that what I am going to talk about here may seem a little abstract, but if you stick with me I think you will have a new perspective on the term Genetics

Obviously we all have our strong bodyparts that just seem to grow on their own. You don’t even really have to think about them when you train, there is just that natural feel and groove to training that body part that makes it grow easily. For me it is my biceps. Nobody is going to match my biceps on stage this year. For you it may be something else, but you know what it is because it just naturally responds to your training.

Now the million dollar question is why do certain body parts just seem to grow so easily? I am going to say the G word, Genetics. The definition of Genetics here is the mechanical advantage some muscles have and that other muscles do not. Makes sense right. That is why some muscles are just so much easier to train than others. Your body is set up in a way that gives those muscles a mechanical advantage which allows them to develop quicker.

The Solution to overcoming Genetics: Implement proper form and relearn your movement patterns

Implementing the solution here will allow you to maintain the greatest amount of tension over the longest range of motion without even thinking about it (the mind-to-muscle connection). Think about your strongest body part here again. You can just pick up the weight and bang it out without even thinking about it and your muscles grow. You just do it and get results. You need to make all your muscles feel this natural when you train to get maximum growth from them.

I may lose you here but stick with me. A book I was reading talked about Engrams. An engram is a predetermined pattern stored in your brain that determines how your muscle moves. So basically what this means is that your brain remembers certain movement patterns and knows exactly which muscles to fire and in what sequence to produce the desired movement pattern (like curling your bicep or doing a calf raise). Every single movement you make is stored in your brain as an engram (except for reflexes). The relevant thing here when it comes to bodybuilding and overcoming genetics is that every single one of these engrams can be CHANGED to your advantage. Changing these engrams is called neuroplasticity. I was reading up on neuroplasticity but it was going over my head so I am just going to say that it appears to be the real deal.

So to overcome your genetic limitations (mechanical disadvantage) you just need to overwrite your old improper movement patterns with the right ones that will give you the results you are looking for. The TRICK when applying this principle is to NEVER use forced reps during your relearning phase. When your set is done, it’s done. The only thing forced reps will do is reinforce BAD movement patterns and short circuit the whole process. You want your brain to remember the ideal movement pattern and NOTHING ELSE. This way when you are training, you don’t have to think about it! It will come naturally and you will have that mind-to-muscle connection.

I have probably confused the hell out of you by now so let’s look at a practical example here to hopefully clear all this up for you.

Let’s Relearn Some Motor Engrams

Here was one of my genetic weak points. The tear drop (vastus medialis) on my quad. My sweep and thickness of my outer quads was pretty good but I just couldn’t get that good tear drop cut. One of the best exercises for developing the tear drop is the leg extension. Out came the anatomy and kinesiology books so I could study that muscle and how it moved and apply that to how I should be doing the leg extension. Here is the main thing I noticed about my leg extensions: I was not maintaining straight lines during the exercise. My hips, knees and ankles were not lined up properly. When the reps were getting hard I was internally rotating my hips and throwing everything out of alignment which was taking the tension off of my quad and particularly my teardrop (as you know now less tension means less growth). I usually pride myself on good form, but reassessing my weak point showed the defect in my training. And here I thought I just had inferior genetics for my teardrop. NO SUCH THING.

Here is how I relearned (reprogrammed my engram) to do the leg extension correctly and overcome my weak body part. I took a small 8lb medicine ball and held it between my knees when I did my leg extensions. This prevented me from internally rotating my hips and after several weeks of doing this I can now do perfect leg extensions without the medicine ball and my teardrops are now progressing nicely I may say. I no longer have a genetic limitation with my tear drop. The mind-to-muscle connection is there now and it just comes naturally to me like bicep curls. Calves are next on the docket.

Here are the Cliff notes of this whole post:

Don’t blame genetics on weak or lagging body parts. Poor genetics is just a mechanical disadvantage for that muscle. To overcome that mechanical disadavantage and spur new growth you need to be sure to overwrite any crappy movement patterns with the right ones (proper form). These crappy movement patterns are limiting your growth. Retrain those movement patterns with correct form until they come natural. You need to know what the OPTIMAL range of motion feels like. You should know how to fully lengthen and shorten your muscle and what the proper plane of motion is for that muscle. Putting your muscles into these full ranges may be unfamiliar to you but it is critical step in order to develop all those untapped and untrained muscle fibers. So don’t just go through the motions when you are trying to bring up your weak parts. Study that muscle and how it moves so you can get the proper engram burned into your mind and work that muscle how it should be worked. Sorry, but you can’t blame your weak points on poor genetics anymore.

Once again, Grow Big
Makwa