Many moons ago when working in the gym I would always speak to members. Exchanging pleasantries and ask what they are doing and how their training is going.
From their response, I could deduce a lot; the efficacy of their training programming. Their level of understanding of exercise physiology, and a heap of other things.
when people would say:
‘Yes training is good, I’m trying to confuse the muscles as much as I can’
I knew that they were a newbie to weight training and their understanding of how we grow muscle was not there.
The reason being is that you can’t confuse contractile tissue [muscle].
Many gym-goers switch up their training programs. To the point, where they’re doing a different workout each time. The rationale for this is down to some idiot out there putting out the concept of ‘muscle confusion’.
The premise being; confusing the muscle, preventing it from adapting to the training.
First, you can’t confuse contractile tissue! Second, adaptation is not undesirable!
Adaptation is the very goal of a training program. By applying stress on a muscle in the form of mechanical tension, we cause it to adapt to that stress. Making itself bigger and stronger.
Recent studies this year have shown that muscle confusion does not work. When a group of men trained for progressive overload [increasing strength over time].
Compared to another group of men applying ‘muscle confusion’ [rotating through different workouts. The ‘confused muscle’ men didn’t gain more muscle!
The bottom line, have a good training program and stick to that. Don’t you be confused about what to do in the gym for building muscle.