Mechanical Tension For Hypertrophy

Mechanical tension is one of the biggest keys to stimulating an increase in muscle size (i.e. hypertrophy). It has taken me years of training to understand this because my focus has always been on feeling leverage instead of feeling mechanical tension. However, injuries in my 50s forced me to abstain from heavy weights and to focus on building my muscles through the use of producing mechanical tension with lighter weight.

Mechanical Tension Explained

My favorite explanation of mechanical tension is stated by Chris Beardsley, who wrote the book, Hypertrophy: Muscle Growth Caused By Mechanical Tension. His explanation of mechanical tension is written as follows:

“Mechanical tension is the type of force that tries to stretch a material. During strength training, muscles experience stretching forces when they try to shorten, but are resisted when they do so. They also experience stretching forces when they lengthen while we are holding a load, but these forces are comparatively smaller.”

The Feel of Mechanical Tension

I believe that mechanical tension has a specific feel. The more you have the feel of mechanical tension, the better your results will be in terms of muscular development. When mechanical tension is your chief objective, it should feel as though the resistance is attempting to stretch and pull the muscle being worked while you are contracting that muscle. If you can sustain this feel throughout the entire range of motion from a full stretch to a full contraction, you have the correct feel of mechanical tension.

One of the reasons why many lifters do not experience the full measure of mechanical tension that they are capable of achieving is that they are focused on feeling positions that create good leverages for lifting a lot of weight. They are doing this instead of focusing on positioning themselves to feel a lot of mechanical tension. The error in thinking is that heavier weights automatically produce more mechanical tension, but it would be more accurate to think that better positioning for mechanical tension is what produces more mechanical tension.

There may be some lifters and bodybuilders who experience a great deal of mechanical tension in the chest muscles when doing bench presses, but others may not have the right anatomical proportions to feel mechanical tension in the chest. The same with the squat when it comes to producing mechanical tension in the leg muscles, and the same with deadlifts when it comes to producing mechanical tension in the lower back. If your goal is to produce muscle growth, you must forget about exercises that focus on the use of leverages that allow you to lift the heaviest weight, and focus on exercises that produce the best positioning and lifting motion for the most mechanical tension.

Mechanical Tension is More than the Mind to Muscle Connection

Many bodybuilders talk about the mind to muscle connection. This is good if it produces mechanical tension. The problem comes when a person erroneously believes that when they use their mind to voluntarily tense a specific muscle, they are automatically activating mechanical tension. You can stand stationary and tighten your pectoral muscles without moving your arms or body. You can also tense your chest muscles while doing a bench press motion with no weight at all. Simply tensing your muscles is not the same as mechanical tension because mechanical tension is produced by resistance or load. The load must produce the sensation of a force that is pulling on the muscle fibers and attempting to stretch them while they are contracting.

Think about the stretch you feel in your pecs at the bottom position of a dumbbell bench press. You want to maintain that same feel pulling on your pec muscle throughout the entire lifting motion. If you lift too fast, or you focus on leverage, you won’t get the feeling of mechanical tension. Either additional muscles will take over, or momentum will take over, both of which will hinder the mechanical tension that can be experienced by your chest muscles. You will have to slow down and focus on lifting in a manner that causes your pecs to do the work. Your pecs must feel the weight pulling hard on your muscle fibers throughout the entire lift. Achieving this feel will require a process of trial and error, and it will take practice until you can feel it on a consistent basis.

Powerlifters should focus on force and leverage when practicing the powerlifts. However, if they are trying to build up a certain muscle group to assist them with powerlifting, they should forget about leverage and focus on the feeling of mechanical tension in the specific muscle they are trying to build.

The exercises that do the best job of creating mechanical tension would take a long time to discuss, which is why I will save it for the next article, which will be added to this article, instead of making it a separate article. God bless you with the best of training.

Mechanical Tension For Hypertrophy Part 2: The Exercises

In part 2 of discussing mechanical tension, the focus will shift to specific exercises that tend to be good for creating mechanical tension. I believe that you can adjust most exercises to create a lot of mechanical tension throughout a full range of motion. The only way to do this is to make a deliberate effort to focus your attention on creating the necessary positioning that will produce mechanical tension. However, there are some exercises that tend to naturally produce mechanical tension for hypertrophy. Videos of these exercises are posted throughout the rest of this article.

Seated Cable Chest Press