The term “Muscle Confusion” has been popularized by the P90x people as a great way to market themselves. They’ve done a great job at it too, pretty much everyone knows what P90X is… Unfortunately this is the fitness field and that means a lot of false promises and hype marketing. These tactics leave professional like myself and other nyc personal trainers in a frustrating predicament.
Muscle Confusion, Confusion!
From athletes to general fitness clients I often here, “Don’t I need to change it up, my body will adapt and I need to confuse”. While this is technically true, what most people think of “confusion” is completely changing the routine. This can be fun for some but if you’re looking for athletic performance it doesn’t allow you to adapt to the movement and master the skill. “Muscle Confusion” can be as simple as changing the volume, intensity, and rest periods. Take for instance the squat, we can do:
- Clusters
- Maximal singles
- Breather squats (high reps)
- Squat + 10 yard sprint (strength + power)
If I was to program utilizing these same movements, this could take up anywhere from 12+ weeks of work. Also to be clear, those that need to change out the exercise selection more often are usually highly qualified athletes that adapt VERY quickly. For the majority of us, we need consistency to work on positioning and to master the skill set. Changing it up week to week i.e. wk 1 day 1 squat, wk 2 day 1 step up, wk 3 day 1 power clean etc… in general will not allow you to challenge yourself enough to adapt. This means you’re basically lifting baby weight and probably not moving beyond novice level….
In short, don’t be so quick to change up the exercise selection. First focus on changing up the volume, intensity, rest periods, etc…
Train smart,
Team Fusion Trained
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