Muscle Confusion

A phrase that often gets thrown around by Glasgow personal trainers is "muscle confusion". Muscle confusion is the training philosophy where you never do the same session twice which never allows your body to adapt to your training efforts and stagnate. The idea being is that you are always improving and never staying put.

While it is possible to "never do the same session twice" is it advisable? Training programs contain numerous variables like the exercises you use, rep ranges, set numbers, rep tempo, session structure, exercise order, training time, rest periods and so on. This gives trainers a lot of scope to alter sessions and you could easily come up with different sessions every day but that creates a big problem.

If everything constantly changes it becomes very difficult to know if you are progressing because you're trying to compare apples and oranges. After all, what is better, 3 sets of 6 reps with 150kg on the squat at the start of a non competing muscle group series session with a 3 minute recovery or 5 sets of 16 reps with 90kg on deadlift at the end of a whole body circuit with 1 minute recovery 8 weeks later? You just can't tell if the most recent effort is better than the first one and it should be, otherwise your training isn't working. If you stick with the same session for 8 weeks and end up squatting 15kg more for 3 sets of 6 at the end of it then you KNOW you have improved. You must have continuity of training to determine its effectiveness and such periods have to be long enough to see a meaningful improvement.

The problem with muscle confusion is it's idiotic. It's part massive over reaction to the plateaux you will inevitably encounter if you do the same session over and over for long enough. You need to vary sessions to avoid bogging down but this change should be planned for weeks, not days. It's also commercially driven as trainers attempt make sessions entertaining, not necessarily effective, so their clients keep coming back. I would rather train people who are smart enough to see training as a means to the results they want and not "fun to do". Effective training is not always "fun", especially when you are not used to it, but the results you get definitely are! If you want results you have to earn them, it is as simple as that.

Iain Smith (MPhil/CSCS) owns Standout Gym, an independent warehouse gym in Glasgow, focusing on weight loss. He offers small group training as an affordable alternative to Glasgow personal training. Iain is a former international decathlete with 17 years coaching experience. www.standoutgym.com.