Motivation can help increase voluntary activation and plays a major role in determining when we reach task failure. Through voluntary activation, motivation therefore has a significant impact on how much hypertrophy we can achieve from a set. If motivation is low, and voluntary activation is therefore limited, fewer muscle fibers will experience mechanical tension.
Why Motivation Can Significantly Influence Voluntary Activation
Motivation plays a crucial role in maximizing voluntary muscle activation. As described in the study by Marcora (2008), high motivation can increase the level of effort a person is willing to exert during training. This means you are able to continue the exercise for longer and activate more motor units. This aligns with the theory that fatigue/task failure occurs when the perceived effort exceeds the maximum tolerable perception of effort a person can handle at that time.
If you manage to increase your motivation, you can therefore prolong performance by increasing your “maximum tolerable perception of effort” and/or activate more muscle fibers, which will lead to greater muscle growth.
In relation to muscle growth, this is essential for maximizing hypertrophy, because a muscle cannot experience mechanical tension if it is not activated (unless it is passive mechanical tension, as mentioned earlier). Therefore, recruiting more fibers will naturally lead to more mechanical tension and greater growth potential. Increased motivation can thus also enhance hypertrophy, as the person will be more inclined to push themselves harder and maintain a high level of effort. This supports the idea that strong motivation is a critical factor with substantial impact on achieving maximal muscle growth through effective voluntary muscle activation.
Figure
Based on the Psychological-Motivational Model described by Marcora et al. (2008), the model illustrates the parameters that influence how hard we can push ourselves, and therefore the amount of voluntary activation we can generate.
The Importance of Voluntary Activation in Muscle Growth – Maximize Your Hypertrophy
When discussing muscle growth, it’s not only training intensity and volume that matter. An often overlooked but extremely important factor is voluntary muscle activation. This refers to your ability to consciously recruit as many motor units as possible during an exercise — the more you activate, the greater your potential for muscle growth.
What Is Voluntary Activation and Why Does It Matter?
Voluntary activation is the ability to consciously activate the motor units within a muscle group. Motor units consist of a nerve and the muscle fibers it innervates. The more motor units you recruit during an exercise, the larger the portion of the muscle that is working — and the greater the potential for hypertrophy.
If you want to optimize muscle growth in a specific muscle group, it is essential to activate as many of these motor units as possible, because a muscle fiber will only grow if it experiences mechanical tension — which requires that it is activated (unless it experiences passive mechanical tension).