The mind muscle connection makes all of the difference when it comes to stimulating growth and detailing quality muscle. If you are not squeezing and contracting the muscle each rep of each set then you are selling yourself short. The muscle will not respond to its full potential. You need to be able to feel the muscle you are working do the work and not all of your ancillary muscles taking on an unnecessary workload. I believe in stimulating and not annihilating the muscle. This means training hard but training smart. Don't lift with you ego. Training too heavy will only increase your risk of injury and chance of sacrificing proper form. That's just going to slow progress, and that's not what we are trying to do. Mind muscle connection is not something you can easily learn overnight, and it takes years to master. I've been training now for about 9 years, and each year the connection is still improving. What goes hand-in-hand with a strong mind muscle connection is a strong PUMP. Which if you are like me - that’s what you live for when you are in the gym. To me it’s one of the best natural highs, and it’s definitely the highlight of my day. If I don’t get a pump in the gym my mood is ultimately affected. If you are suffering from not being able to get a pump at all or you’re not getting a maximum amount of blood when you train - here are some tips to keep in mind. First off, are you getting enough sleep? Rest and recovery are just as important as your workouts and nutrition. If you are over trained or not getting sufficient quality sleep then this can affect your pump in the gym. Next and just as important is hydration. A lot of people walk around daily unknowingly being dehydrated. Anyone that is trying to maximize their pump needs to be drinking a minimum of 1 gallon a day. I personally drink 1.5-2 gallons a day, and I'll have at least a gallon before I go weight train (I weight train around 1:30-2pm every session). Next on the list is nutrition. You want to be taking in enough carbohydrates for your body to facilitate a good pump. 45 minutes before I hit the weights I'm eating a good source of carbohydrates. Last but not least in the nutrition department is sodium. So many people shy away from sodium because they fear water retention. If you don't have blood pressure issues then there is no reason to restrict sodium. The only time I'll restrict is a few days before I have a shoot. Sodium helps transport carbs into the muscles, so you’re missing out on extreme full pumps if you restrict sodium all the time. I'll season all of my meats with sodium seasonings and I'll use hot sauce or mustard's for condiments. Once you have all of that down 100 percent then you can try to incorporate a pre-workout supplement that will be the icing on the cake.