The importance of making arbitration more efficient and less costly has such a high profile that the Dispute Resolution Journal devoted the last issue to this theme. The challenge of protecting the time and cost advantages of arbitration will continue until parties and arbitration counsel learn to think of arbitration as a process that is distinct from litigation and arbitrators learn to be more “muscular” and disciplined managers of the process and themselves. The American Arbitration Association (AAA) is committed to improving the arbitration process and regularly asks users of AAA services and their counsel about their arbitration experience and how it could be better. More often than not, parties and counsel say they want arbitrators to exercise greater control over the arbitration process to prevent delay and the escalating cost of the process. In a keynote address at the 2010 AAA Neutrals Conference, William Slate II, the past president and CEO of the AAA, emphasized that an important part of arbitration’s mission is to avoid the undue expense and delay that characterizes litigation. He urged arbitrators to “take a cold, hard look” at every arbitration case to see what they can do to deliver a more economical and efficient process. The term “muscular arbitration” describes a disciplined arbitration in which the arbitrator actively manages the pre-hearing and hearing phases of the case so that there are no delays and the issues submitted to arbitration are decided on the merits in an efficient and timely manner. An important part of muscular arbitration is arbitrator selfdiscipline, which requires the arbitrators to manage not only the process, but also to manage themselves. This article explores these ideas.