Certain people in the gym believe in muscle confusion whereas others don’t. I’m sure you may have come across this phrase before. People believe that muscle confusion helps to build muscle faster and helps to break through a weight training plateau. I’ve noticed a lot of articles on the web slating muscle confusion and giving people the wrong impression that the concept of muscle confusion does not work.
Muscle Confusion
These writers are telling you to stick to a solid routine and very rarely alter it. Now don’t get me wrong, I agree that sticking to a solid routine that incorporates compound movements and the most effective muscle building exercises is the way to go for muscle growth. However, there will come a time when even the most perfectly designed weight training routine will stop yielding results. So what do you do?
To continue building muscle and progressing in your training you need to change something! Here’s where the phrase muscle confusion comes in. People will tell others who have stalled in their training that they need to confuse their muscles to shock them into new growth. Now the concept of this is correct but is worded completely wrong.
When someone says you need to confuse your muscle to shock them into new growth they are incorrect. I hate to break the news to you but your muscles can’t be confused. Their not people! Muscles cannot be confused! Now we have that cleared up that’s take a look at how the concept of confusing your muscles can actually work!
Does Muscle Confusion Even Exist?
Muscle confusion is really another term for change and variety. Change and variety can be powerful weapons when it comes to continued muscle growth. As I stated earlier, even the most perfect workout routine will eventually stop working for you. On paper a workout routine may look perfect but when you put something into practice on a consistent basis it has a tendency to stop producing the results it once did.
This is similar to weight loss. Eating and consuming the same amount of calories on a consistent basis will eventually stop working for you and you wont lose as much fat as you once did. It’s exactly the same for muscle building. You will stop putting on as much strength and muscle mass as you once did overtime.
This is when we add variety into our routine and change it! How? Simple. First off consider changing the order you perform your exercises. That’s take chest day for example. If you perform flat barbell bench press as your first main chest building exercise then swap it for incline barbell bench press and put your flat barbell bench press exercise second.
Simple changes like this will not confuse your muscles but will place them under a different kind of stress they are use to. If your body is used to the same exercises for weeks on end then switching them around or incorporating new exercises into your routine is going to help you build muscle.
Best Ways to Add Variety
Other good ways to add variety into your routine is by adding or changing exercises, switching between high reps and low reps, lifting more weight, lifting less weight, adding supersets, adding drop sets or completely changing your weight training program. As you can see, the muscle confusion principle that so many people believe in are basically plateau busters.
The idea of muscle confusion is to change something or do something your muscles haven’t experienced for a while. This is the number one way to overcome any kind of plateau you may have encountered in your training. It’s not about incorporating muscle confusion into your routine its about adding variety to your current schedule and doing something different that your body is not accustomed to.
This should generally be done every 6-8 weeks in my opinion but I only recommend changing something when you stop seeing progress in your training or you become bored and unmotivated with your current routine. If your continually progressing in every training session then do not change it until progress stops! When you do decide to change it simple changes such as performing a different exercise first can be enough to help kick start your strength gains.
Don’t overcomplicate things, just be intelligent when you design your routine and don’t forget to switch things up every now and again to place a different kind of stress on the muscles. Not to confuse them!
