Muscle confusion for growth.

[Ibanez]

Hi ppl, tell me whether this idea I had has any merit or not? (Who knows, it could already be a technique others use or avoid)

Could breaking the typical training routine I follow (doing a few different exercises per muscle group for 2-3 sets for 8-10 reps) to say a few times a month doing a single set per muscle group of a much lighter weight with say 50 reps+ to failure stimulate muscle growth? My thinking is that doing an exercise with far higher reps could engorge the muscle fibers with blood and through muscle confusion could result in a trigger of new growth???

Or would I just get a great pump and no growth...lol Thoughts? Cheers....

[snakemw]

might be ok for cutting dont think it would be too good for bulking. i would def. work out more than a couple of times a week though. if you are looking to change your routine look into DC training. i just started it about 2 weeks ago and i love it.

[wedgylx]

instead, start incorporating drop sets and supersets every 3-4 weeks for each muscle

[Ibanez]

To clarify my original post, I meant to incorporate an exhaustive set once every few weeks in combination of my regular 3 day a week schedule.

I love supersets/drop sets. It makes me laugh every time I think of the confusion on people's faces, who have missed the first weight drops in this fashion when they see this big guy using every ounce of strength within to squeeze out a few reps with a very light weighted bar etc.

[wedgylx]

To clarify my original post, I meant to incorporate an exhaustive set once every few weeks in combination of my regular 3 day a week schedule.

I love supersets/drop sets. It makes me laugh every time I think of the confusion on people's faces, who have missed the first weight drops in this fashion when they see this big guy using every ounce of strength within to squeeze out a few reps with a very light weighted bar etc.

i hear ya.

PS, I have an ibanez RG1570MRB

[Ibanez]

Yeah, I love Ibanez's.... I collect their rare models myself. The RG1570 is a good solid workhorse, great value for money! I am a former Ibanez national endorsee wedgy... cheers

[italionstallionl]

my dad used to play guitar :shock:

he breaks it out about twice a year

dunno much about his guitars other than ones an old fender stratacastor (sp) and the other one is an acoustic that has an E on it. i dont know what it stands for :D

im not a guitar afficianado

[mcsteveof2h2h]

The Confusion will def increase growth in your muscle. I've never liked the high reps just because ive always felt more gains off "mass" style lifts (high weight, low reps) I also had a few large guys tell me that the high reps didnt do anything even if you were toning. But ive always felt that it made sense for toning

[dinoiii]

Muscle "tone" - Grrrrrrrr! Note: I do NOT mean anything more by the following post other than it being a personal pet peeve of mine the way this exercise physiologic concept has been inappropriately used because of the way the fitness industry understands meeting the public's cry of not having big HUGE raging bb-type females walking the earth.



Somehow the definition of muscle "tone" has become clouded in the annals of bodybuilding (especially in female lifters).

True muscle "tone" is the inherent ability of the muscle to respond to a stretch - it is kind of an automatic governance of antagonistic muscles and has nothing to do with how the body "looks."

For example, if you quickly flex a straightened elbow of a person trying to perform a biceps curl , their artificial training partner, gravity does not allow proper eccentric lowering and when going beyond a certain point the weight drops - your triceps incorporate opposite stabilizing contraction with normal "tone," the triceps will quickly contract in response (automatic protection against possible injury). It is like prevention of hyperextension. When the perceived danger has passed, which the brain figures out really quickly once the stimulus is removed, the muscle then relaxes, and returns to its normal resting state.

The person with high "tone" or "spasticity" has over-reactive response to the same stimulus. When his arm is flexed, the triceps tightens at an even more rapid rate, and the rate of recovery is much slower, even after the stimulus is removed. Full relaxation is difficult to achieve, so the muscle stays taut for an extended period of time. If another stimulus is added before the muscle has a chance to recover (which happens often during normal movement in the everyday world), the muscle contracts again, becoming tighter.

The individual with low "tone" has muscles that are slow to initiate a muscle contraction, contract very slowly in response to a stimulus, and can not maintain a contraction for as long as his "normal" peers.

Because these low-toned muscles do not fully contract before they again relax (muscle accommodates to the stimulus and so shuts down again), they remain loose and very stretchy, never realising their full potential of maintaining a muscle contraction over time.

In sum, while I know what you meant by the term "tone" as you used it, I was simply reacting to years of abuse of the term in the industry.

[dinoiii]

To answer Ibanez's question: increasing reps would improve muscular endurance and this could indirectly lead to increased strength in various ways allowing you to build more muscle in the long term while NOT abandoning stress adaptations in applying the overload principle.

I guess to sumarize the aforementioned run-on sentence that I got carried away with:

There may be indirect benefit to increasing the reps, but inter-spercing it amongst your heavier lifting if attempting to attain mass. It does have it's place in a periodized routine, but it is NOT necessarily a necessity.

EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY IN ACTION
An example may be

Biceps:

Lift #1: Heavy Biceps Curls (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #2: Heavy Biceps Curls (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #3: Heavy Biceps Curls (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #4: Heavy Biceps Curls (say, 6 x 4)

Lift #5: Rep-Out modality lift with considerably lighter weight
Lift #6: Rep-Out modality lift with considerably lighter weight (slightly lighter than lift #5 if it allows the same amount of high-repping, not to exceed Lift #5 in number however.


--> If you are truly in a "mass" phase, using exercise physiological concepts of antagonistic benefit, you may move on to

Triceps

Lift #1: Heavy Close-Grip Bench (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #2: Heavy Close-Grip Bench (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #3: Heavy Close-Grip Bench (say, 6 x 4)
Lift #4: Heavy Close-Grip Bench (say, 6 x 4)

Lift #5: Rep-Out modality lift with considerably lighter weight
Lift #6: Rep-Out modality lift with considerably lighter weight (slightly lighter than lift #5 if it allows the same amount of high-repping, not to exceed Lift #5 in number however.

You could repeat with a MAX of Up to ONE MORE Biceps and ONE MORE triceps "series" in this fashion with alternative lifts, say CHIN-UPS (biceps) / DIPS (triceps) - both WEIGHTED OF COURSE!!!

* Note: Rep-Out modality is a repeat of previous compound lift with use of weight you could perform a high rep series with.





Hope this helps.