It's all mental-or pretty close

"It's all mental!" is the traditional rallying cry when you're approaching complete wipe out but are determined to push yourself over the limit. And mental-or at least central nervous system connected-it may well be, according to a report in a recent issue of Planet Muscle by William Power, Ph. D. Dr. Powell focuses on the impact of the neuromuscular junction as the essential go-between that links chemical messages from your brain to your muscles.

Without the activity at the junction, you're pretty much dead in the water, because it's at this junction point where electrical signals and chemical messengers release a whole series of events that produce the muscle contraction you are banking on to get the weight from here to there-and back again. As Dr. Powell puts it, while muscular growth is often attributed to the increase in size and number of muscle fibers, without the central nervous system-and the neuromuscular junction at work-there is no muscle contraction.

Can you do anything to increase the efficiency of the central nervous system part of your workout? All the following may sound familiar, but that only proves how interrelated all the body's functions are. So here goes for greater neuromuscular junction function: Eat about one gram of high quality protein for every pound of body weight every day. Never underestimate your need for rest and recovery: as Dr. Powell says, it takes over one hour even for professional jocks to regain neuromuscular efficiency.

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