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It’s 3AM and you just flipped on the TV after a night of partying to chow down on the post-drinking meal and drift off into La La Land.

As you slink into the soft bliss of your silk sheets, there on the screen you see another predictable late night fitness program infomercial.

“This system is guaranteed to keep your muscles guessing by using our secret muscle confusion tactics…!”

Muscle confusion…

Wow sounds legit. I mean…it makes sense, doesn’t it.

You hit a plateau and need to switch things up to keep making gains. Your muscles are rebellious little millennials and don’t want to adapt, so if you keep training them the same way you’ll look the same way.

Bring on the new routine!

…not so fast.

As catchy as it sounds, muscle confusion is just another myth and marketing tactic to get you to buy more bullshit you don’t need.

In this article I’ll go over the myth of muscle confusion and what you should do instead to keep making great gains.

What makes muscle grow?

If you think that muscle growth is some magical phenomenon that is made up of wishful thinking and a hefty dose of “everyone is different!!!”, then of course you’d be quick to jump on the muscle confusion bandwagon.

But the reality is that we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress into teasing out what makes muscles grow and how to deliberately do that through our training.

So before you fall for muscle confusion, first you’d better have a general idea as to what makes muscles grow in the first place:

Mechanisms of Muscle Growth

Although we oftentimes do, muscles don’t get confused. 

VI. THE BODY IS MASTERFULLY BUILT TO SURVIVE AND ADAPT

The crux of physical development is knocking the body out of homeostasis to bring about some change. Overloading the muscle to spur growth. Creating a caloric deficit to drop body fat.

While we can do many things with our knowledge of the body to bring about good changes, let us recognize that we cannot outsmart Mother Nature through magic and manipulation. She’s a much wiser vixen…(continued)

Myofibers experience various stressors and then adapt in ways that are specific to that stimulus to better handle that stressor in the future.

The current model of muscle growth is comprised of…

1. Mechanical tension (load/stretch)
2. Metabolic stress (the pump or “burn”)
3. Muscle damage (as the name implies)

…with mechanical tension as the primary driver of muscle growth and metabolic stress and muscle damage either serving additive, redundant, or a detrimental role.

Volume, Intensity, and Frequency

Those are the drivers of muscle growth, but they must be carried out through training, so now we shift our attention to the different training variables we have to manipulate to bring about optimal muscle growth:

1. Intensity: Intensity of load (% of your 1RM/reps), Intensity of effort (how close you are to failure)
2. Volume: Total work performed (weight x reps x sets) or more simply, sets performed provided adequate intensity
3. Frequency: How often you train a muscle group and how you divide up your weekly volume

Of these, volume is the most important (more volume=more growth…to a point), but they are all interconnected and vitally important for designing a great program.

I discuss this in further detail in this article:

The Trinity of Gains: Volume, Intensity, and Frequency

Specific to the muscle

These variables are then applied to given muscles through exercises.

The main objective behind any exercise chosen for hypertrophy is to maximize hypertrophy in that muscle (duh!). Sounds like common sense, but it’s also commonly violated.

That means you want maximal activation and stimulus in the context of your volume, intensity, and frequency.

But things do get more complex which I’ll touch on later in this article in the section over differential activation and muscle confusion.

Provide Adequate Nutrients and Recovery

Of course the old adage is true:

You can’t out-train a bad diet.

Proper nutrition including sufficient protein is key to maximizing muscle mass gains.

Muscle protein synthesis is elevated after a training session and is an energy intensive process. Without it, there are no gains.

Overload

Finally, the stimuli must increase over time to continue making adaptations (more muscle growth).

This means that the weight on the bar, the work you’re doing with it, or a combination of the two must increase over time.

This is known as progressive overload.

Quick Summary

That’s how muscle grows in a nutshell.

And it never changes.

As you get more advanced the particulars change, but the fundamentals do not.

Where was muscle confusion in all of this? It wasn’t.

The basic methods you used to build your physique early on are the same ones that you will use to get even bigger. The amount simply changes and other details are worked in to help carry this out.

Let that sink in.

Why is muscle confusion so effective then?

But wait…

If muscle confusion is just a myth, then how come people get results from it?

Great question.

That’s what makes muscle confusion so damn seductive.

Muscle confusion is that sexy new girl who’s a freak in the sheets until you commit and the love dries up. Then you realize she really never had any substance anyways.

That being said, here’s why I feel muscle confusion seems so effective and enticing early on:

Newbie Gains

The biggest reason muscle confusion is so “effective” is due to the motor learning that occurs when you introduce a new exercise into your program.

Think back to when you were a newb. You were adding 5-10 pounds to your main lifts every session.

Was it your muscles that were growing?

Of course not.

Research has shown that you don’t even really get appreciable hypertrophy (if at all) until a few weeks into training. See here for an example.

So what was going on?

Motor learning and neural efficiency. See here and here.

To carry out an exercise, you’ve got to train your nervous system to be able to execute the lifts properly to be able to load them effectively and induce muscle hypertrophy.

Think back again to when you were a newb. Were you benching, squatting, and deadlifting with crisp, clean form?

No.

You were shaking like Bambi on cocaine and felt awkward.

Then as you got comfortable with the lift you were able to really push things.

So in essence, the rapid gains you see from muscle confusion are really from nervous system confusion and not doing anything for your actual muscle mass.

So by switching up your exercises every couple of weeks, you’re really just getting better at the exercise without giving yourself time to really dig in and make solid gains by mastering them.

This “tricks” you into thinking that you’re making amazing muscle gain progress, but the reality is that you’re not.

Remember: The numbers are only one measure of progress. What you really care about is muscle growth. Don’t get confused.

Increase Training Stress

As mentioned, training volume at a sufficient intensity is the primary driver behind muscle growth.

The more you do, the better – up to a point.

So if muscle confusion involves ramping up your volume for a given muscle or different areas of it, then it shouldn’t be surprising you see gains from it.

Differential Targeting

Next, we have differential targeting.

In the above section on what makes muscle grow, I mentioned that the goal of an exercise in bodybuilding is to maximally stimulate a muscle for hypertrophy.

But are all exercises created equally…even for the same muscle?

No, they are not.

Muscles are often compartmentalized and see different levels of activation in the muscle depending on the movement or movement angle. For example, the clavicular head of the pectoralis major is activated more on incline pressing movements.

Some even serve distinct functions! For example, the hamstrings both extend the hips and flex the knee.

There is also something to be said about active insufficiency. Many muscles span 2 joints, so when a muscle is shortened at one joint, it cannot exert maximal force at the other. For example, on seated bent-knee calf raises, the gastrocnemius can’t exert its normal force. 

On the other hand, if you stretch a muscle at one joint, then it can exert maximal force at the other. For example, the long head of the triceps gets maximal stimulation when the arm is extended overhead because of its attachment at the shoulder.

By using muscle confusion, you may just be working the muscle to different degrees that could’ve been accomplished just as well with the right knowledge.

In this study, using varied exercises for the quads led to better strength and more well-rounded size gains than a constant exercise approach.

Psychological Novelty

Lastly, how you view your program is just as important as the program itself.

For more, see my article: The 3P Fitness Program Approach

If you’re not feeling what you’re doing, you’re not going to stick to it or put forth your best effort.

Performing the same routine day in and day out for months can begin to feel boring and stale.

By switching in new exercises, you can reignite that love you had for training and really push yourself again.

Call that “magical muscle confusion” and you’ve got the perfect placebo for better performance and what follows – better gains.

Conclusion

Muscle confusion.

Just another myth with a nice ring to it.

…just don’t put a ring on it.

Stick to the tried and true principles and organize your training with careful thought and calculated intention rather than praying that your maiden of muscle confusion will save you.

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For more on the art and science of achieving the aesthetic physique, check out my book: Architect of Aesthetics

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