Muscle Confusion Or The "Non - Routine" Routine
by Tim Wescott
Get in touch with your bodys feedback,and put an end to bad workouts forever !!
Over the years, I`ve used just about every training protocol available in my quest to build my body to it`s genetic potential.
I`ve tried volume training,power training,Heavy Duty,H.I.T., heavy weights, light weights,high reps,low reps,and every intensity technique you can think of........... and also some of my own invention. I`ve also tried every conceivable training split from 2 days a week, to 7 days a week, and everything in between,with varying degress of success........... and of course varying degrees of failure as well.
I don`t have the most favorable genetics for bodybuilding............ ..not by a long shot,in fact,simply put,my genetics suck,but I love to train and compete, so I refused to quit,and instead, I kept plodding along year after year doing the best that I could do to make gains in some form or another.
As a kid,I had the metabolism of a hummingbird on ephedrine, and a tiny sparrowlike bone structure,so I had to literally slave in the gym to earn every little bit of muscle I have added to my frame thus far.................in spite of these shortcomings, I have put on over 80 pounds since I first started training,so if you garner only one single bit of advice from this article,it should be that persistance pays off !!
All throughout my training career,which is quite extensive,I have always used a routine for 4-6 weeks at a time,and then discarded it. At times,if I felt I was still making gains,I would do it for 8 weeks, then alter it, and go for it again doing the usual 4-6 week stint.
I would follow the workout routine religously.............. . exactly as I had written it out on paper,never deviating from it even if I was making nothing for gains.After all,most of the magazines said this 4-6 week time period was the amount of time needed to actually give the workouts time to do their supposed "magic", this was how professional bodybuilders trained,so who was I to argue with that kind of "time tested" logic?
A few years ago, while training with a friend of mine at our local gym,I dipped into my gym bag to retreive the new program I had written out the night before, to review exactly what I had on the agenda for todays workout. This workout routine was just another one in a long line of great routines that would propel me to the top of the bodybuilding ladder............. just like the thousands of others I had written over my many years of training. Watching me intently as I perused the notebook I retreived from my bag,my buddy asked me what I was reading,I told him it was the new workout that I`d be using for the next 4 to 6 weeks.
He looked amazed and shocked, and asked me why I didn`t train instinctively, and make up my workouts according to how I felt on any particular training day.He went on to say that training in this instinctive manner was an advanced technique used by tons of advanced bodybuilders,and that it was sort of a "muscle confusion" type of system, which kept the body from adapting to any set routine or exercise scheme, thereby guaranteeing continuous slow but steady gains in size and strength .
I honestly felt that he may as well have been speaking Greek as I explained to him that all my training was well thought out, and was designed to accentuate weak points,and to de-emphasize my better bodyparts, with the main intention of building better proportions and balance to my physique. I also told him that if you failed to plan,then you planned to fail,and that his line of thinking sounded like a hit or miss affair at best. He went on to say that if I was to train in the manner that he described,it would allow me to use a much wider variety of exercises to keep things fresh and interesting, and he also talked about the bodys ability to adapt very quickly to a set routine.
After much discussion with him and mulling things over in my mind for a few days,I decided that his training ideas were pretty sound, I certainly had nothing to lose........... it wasn`t like my usual pattern of training was goign to transforming me into a Mr. Olympia contender anytime soon........ and after all,I would still be training hard,just not on my usual type of set regimen, so I more than likely wouldn`t lose any of my previous gains,and just possibly,I thought I might just make some much needed progress due to the extreme change in training.
What really solidified my decision to begin implementing his ideas was that when I talked to other friends who were also very serious trainees, I found that the majority of them all did something similar to the training approach that he had described .....I felt like I had been living in a cave or something!!
Muscle Confusion vs. Instinctive Training:
"Muscle Confusion", is somewhat similar to what people call "instinctive training" but those who say they train instinctively,if there really is such a thing,sometimes skip workouts,train the same bodypart two times in succession,or take time off from training entirely, just because their bodies "tell them to".
You should always listen to your bodys feedback and adjust training,diet, and rest accordingly, but the above scenarios in my book are almost sacriliegous.Training the "Muscle Confusion" way,we have certain variables that we adhere to at all times,these are a constant and some of these are that consistancy is paramount above all else.....this means we do not miss a scheduled training session unless we are near death,also I never would dream of training a bodypart two days in a row....it`s all about recovery or your best efforts are wasted.
Now a well deserved layoff, and periodic breaks from training can be very beneficial............in my case however,they are rarely taken, as I simply cut back volume and intensity at times.......kind of an "active rest period" if you will. At this time I just coast and enjoy my workouts........nothing too intense at all.
If these people truly trained instinctively,their instincts would be telling them to cease training altogether as tearing down muscle tissue is far from pleasureable,and not something often done by the average person in their right minds.Of course,a bodybuilder is far from being average as we all know.
Eking out the hard reps on your last set of ass to the grass squats is surely a painful experience that our instincts would definately "tell" us to avoid at any and all costs! We must therefore use our minds to motivate us to push through these hard sets and reps .......we have to coax,will,push,and force our bodies to get more muscular,while our instincts would tell us to simply never make the attempt.......and what kind of fun would that be for a pain seeking bodybuilder?
So,as you can see, instinct may not be the best choice of words when it comes to training............I prefer to simply adjust things according to my bodys feedback.This takes a long time to learn as you truly have to be in touch with your body and how it responds to different training stimuli.
Training Experience And Muscle Confusion:
This is where a great deal of training experience comes into play............a beginner should not even attempt to train in the manner I am describing, and should just do basic bodybuilding exercises until he/she has built a solid foundation on which to build upon.In your first 2-3 years of training,depending on the individual of course,you should follow a set program to the letter until you learn how to train hard and with intensity.After this time period,if you feel you have grown stagnant and have stopped progressing,by all means give "Muscle Confusion" a whirl !!
When ready,instead of revamping your entire schedule ,just make slight changes here and there substituting different movements for similar movements until you get a better feel for what may be needed.
Now a little bit about how our bodies adapt to training and some ways to get around it using "The "Non-Routine" Routine!!
Adaptation to Training:
Our bodies are literally miracles of adaptability, they are quite capable of altering themselves in response to any workloads placed upon them in such a way, that future and similar loads will be less stressful..........adapt ability at it`s finest. Likewise, they can, and will,adapt to having no demands placed upon them, becoming increasingly weaker and less capable, if we were to cease training entirely................ .......in a nutshell,the processes of hypertrophy and atrophy.
Strength training involves, first, causing damage in the muscle cells we train, second, allowing time and providing resources necessary for the body to mend that damage.Modern science has confirmed that strenuous weight training sessions do indeed cause damage to the muscle fibers in the form of micro tears. The damaged fibers release particular signaling substances that lead to the arrival of cells that clean up the damaged fibers, and then signal the nucleus of the cells to produce new proteins that are used to repair the muscles.These proteins, coupled with sufficient sleep and rest, enable the muscles to recouperate and hypertrophy.
Over periods of time, these repeated bouts of training—muscle damage, leading to muscle repair—can result in an increase in the amount of muscle protein. Thus the muscle becomes bigger and stronger, and capable of handling greater resistance.
In order to generate larger, stronger muscles, you must subject your muscles to a great enough force to create muscle damage. To do that, the muscle must be overloaded. In other words, it must be subjected to demands to which it has not yet adapted................. ...a constant and ongoing challenge to build muscle.The longer you have been training, the more frequently you need to change the stimulus that your muscles are receiving.
Most training experts agree that the muscles will adapt to a certain exercise or workload after 2-3 training sessions.There are numerous ways to get around this adaptabilty by the body,but since we are discussing "Muscle Confusion" in this article,lets check out how it applies to adaptation, and some of its numerous other benefits.
Overload:
In order to get the muscles to adapt, they must be exposed to a load greater than what they normally can handle or are accustomed to handling. That is, muscles must be challenged or overloaded. Overload can be accomplished by manipulating several variables:
1.Progressive Resistance: The most basic tactic used to create overload is to simply increase the resistance on the bar or machine that you are using.
2.Increasing Training Volume: The number of repetitions, and/or sets can be increased.
3.Intensity Of Effort: The amount of time between sets can be shortened to create a training enviroment where you perform the most possible amount of work,in the shortest possible amount of time..
4. Frequency Of Training: The number of times a muscle group is trained in any period of time can be increased.
When we train using the technique of Muscle Confusion, we use all of the above scenarios at various times in our workouts to create overload,keep intensity high,and to alleviate boredom...........the body never gets a chance to adapt to a set system or pattern of training. Lets say for example the first two days of our training split last week were heavy days using lower reps,on the third scheduled day of training,we were feeling a bit tired and lacking enthusiasm,do we stay home or try to go heavy anyway?
We simply adjust the stress of our workout by manipulating your reps, sets, rest intervals, training frequency, etc.
This is where you read your bodys feedback and adjust things accordingly............. adjustments in training and eating patterns are a constant part of "Muscle Confusion" !
Heavy vs. Light:
The term "heavy day" is a relative one when you are a bodybuilder,or at least it should be.We all know that an all out one rep maximum effort is certainly heavy,as is a triple with a ponderous weight,but is that possible all the time while training,or even desirable for bodybuilding purposes?
A set of 10-12 reps on barbell curls can be heavy also,as long as you are working hard to squeeze out those reps,and not dogging it.Likewise,20 rep squats are heavy if getting to the 15th. rep is a struggle, and you still have 5 more reps to perform.So,heavy is not always 1-3 or 5 or 6 reps,it can be any rep scheme at all, as long as you are training in an all out fashion,and completing those reps is taxing the body to its fullest.........which you should be attempting to do 90% of the time.
If a heavy weight feels extra heavy on a particular day,or if even your warmup poundages are tough,simply lower poundages and rest less between sets,these shorter rest periods,coupled with the use of use drop sets and triple drop-sets,X-Reps,Super-Sets,or some other intensity techniques thrown in,will ensure that even though your energy levels are low, or you didn`t get much sleep the night before,or whatever the variable is that`s contributing to you feeling a bit off,you still have a good and a productive training session in spite of it.So on our third day of training for the week,we may not go as heavy as we might have hoped to,but we still get in a good productive workout!!
We all have bad days,but we do not have to have bad workouts,just some that are perhaps a bit better than others!!
Rep Cadence / Time Under Tension:
Lately,I have been experimenting with using greater times under load by doing reps at a slower pace and extending sets by using X-Reps and drop sets as well as Super-Sets and Giant-Sets.All of these techniques allow you to extend a set much further than you ever could training in a straight set fashion.This extending of a set results in greater time under load or tension which taxes the muscles for longer periods resulting in an increase in size and strength......best case scenario anyway!
Variations in the speed of an exercise recruits different muscle fibers also.Certain fibers will respond better to heavier loads moved at a slower cadence,and other fibers will likewise respond better to high velocity type training.......both should be used occasionally.Training with an exaggerated slow rep cadence using a tempo of 5-0-5 for instance,will increase the muscles time under tension or stress,resulting in another way to make progress.
All of these weapons should be in your training arsenal and used from time to time to alleviate boredom as well as to keep the muscles from adapting to any set training pattern.By constantly varying your training sessions,your body will not have a chance to adapt.The "Muscle Confusion" training routine is about the only way to train to beat adaptation!!