It may also be possible to encourage growth simply by focussing on your muscle and imagining it enlarging which has been shown to generate more power and microtears than just absent mindedly wondering what’s on TV later. Arnie himself used to imagine his biceps growing ‘as large as the room’ when he was training, and look how that’s helped him.

What’s more, is that by imaging lifting weights when we’re not even in the gym, we can still actually strengthen the connections – improving our muscle memory, technique, speed of access and even power. Golfers are encouraged to do this, going through the perfect swing in their mind to practice technique when they don’t have access to a golf club or range. You can do the same – going through good squatting form or bench press form in your head during bored moments or before you go to sleep (a particularly good time for strengthening synapses). It has even been suggested that through simply imaging a workout you can stimulate some muscle growth by ‘tricking’ the brain. Don’t give up the gym membership just yet, but it certainly can’t hurt. And if you’re really serious about strengthening synapses you can even get supplements that will help do the job for you.

The interaction between body and mind is more complex than that even though. When you work out your brain is stimulated to release hormones and these in turn can affect your workout. That’s why your mood can have such a large impact on a workout, and also why your workout can affect your mood and leave you feeling calm and satisfied. Try to affect your own mood before a workout by ‘priming’ yourself – you can do this with positive self talk, a movie or inspirational music – anything that’ll get you pumped and ready to go.

The affect of your hormones on your strength is something that I don’t believe has properly been researched or tapped into however. Of particular interest is adrenaline, produced by the fight or flight response to fear which can block out pain (essentially just a state of mind) and increase your strength tenfold. Whenever you lift a weight or punch a punch bag, your brain automatically forces you to hold back slightly so as not to hurt yourself and probably to reserve some energy. In times of crisis however, individuals have been known to bench press up to half a tonne (in the case of a climber who was stuck under a large boulder), to accelerate on foot as fast as a running horse, or to deadlift cars off of loved ones trapped beneath. And these are people with NO experience in the gym, in some cases middle aged women. The only problem is that these often leave the individuals completely exhausted with burst blood vessels and torn ligaments/muscles. However, if we could tap into just a fraction of that potential then we would be able to perform at our optimum in the gym at all times. Ways to do this could include visualising ourselves in a life or death situation, perhaps being chased or attacked by one of your greatest primal fears. Or even (though this probably isn’t advisable, just an interesting concept) through painkillers.

Mack LeMouse

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