On September 23, 2010 I went to a seminar given by Pilates instructor Shelley Hampton at Cox Hospital in Springfield, Missouri.
One of the things she demonstrated was the connection between the mind and the body during exercise. The way she demonstrated it didn’t appear—at least to me—to be very convincing. Her opinion was that you could increase another person’s strength by simply putting your hands on that person, which would help them to concentrate and, by that, increase their strength.
The next day I tried it on a fellow I was training named Adam. Adam had done his first set of bench presses with 250 pounds. He did 3 reps and then failed halfway up on the 4th rep.
Then I had Dianne place her hands on his upper pectoral muscles for his next set with the same 250 pounds. He did 5 full reps.
Seeing is believing.
We took this video afterward just to demonstrate the concept.
