Muscle confusion is actually pretty simple. It could be increasing the amount of weight you're pumping, the amount of reps you perform in a set, or even supersetting two compound exercises together. To me, it just seems like a schmancy term for "stepping it up". Example: Leg press. You get on the machine. Every time you do the leg press, it's 3 sets of 10 repetitions with a load of, say, 150 lbs.
Keep doing this everyday and of course you're going to notice a halt in your progress. The answer? "Confuse" your muscles by either now doing 15 repetitions per set, or increasing the weight to 170, 180, etc. and noticing that your repetitions will drop earlier due to more energy required, and thus, have to work to get your reps back up to 10 a set with the increased weight.
Benefits Of Muscle Confusion
Here are some of the most evident benefits of muscle confusion:- With muscle confusion, you can burn more calories vis-à-vis other workout methodologies. By sort of “confusing” your muscles, you somewhat give your body muscles a new type of physical obstacle to overcome each day. You are not giving your muscles the chance to adjust to physical stress hence it may appear as if you are always doing new forms of exercises each day. In this regard, you will continue to burn as much calories as you want to.
- Muscle confusion incorporates the positive aspect of change. You will enjoy your workout plan if you apply the concept of muscle confusion. The usual boredom that you get from doing your mainstay exercise routines will become a thing of the past if you inject a regular pattern of change to your workouts. You will definitely have fun doing varied forms of exercises each day. On top of that, you will definitely learn many new forms of exercises that you have never heard at the start of your entire workout plan.
- The good thing with muscle confusion is that it allows some of your muscle groups to relax at a certain point in time. For your information, it is during the rest phase where you start to build or develop your muscles and with muscle confusion doing a multi-muscle approach to workouts then you will not overstress one particular muscle group only. Your tendons, ligaments and muscles will be exercised evenly rather than repeatedly thus avoiding any undue injuries.
- In relation with the fist benefit of burning more calories, have you heard of the acronym BMR? BMR stands for basal metabolic rate or the rate in which your body expends or uses the calories that you had taken in. In muscle confusion, your BMR rockets up. You will then burn not just more calories but burn them a lot faster than the usual. Because your muscles are being confused as to how much energy is required in muscle confusion workouts then your BMR simply peaks.