Achieve Muscle Weight Gain Through Muscle Confusion

There's a common problem that affects both dieters and muscle mass builders, and it's equally disheartening to both groups. Sooner or later, you stop seeing the gains or losses that you once saw, even though you might be working out at the same or even a higher intensity level. The good news is that you can beat these plateaus.

Your body is an amazing piece of machinery, and is able to adapt to a variety of environments and external pressures. That's the foundation of building mass. You put your muscles under load, tear them down, and your body fights back by rebuilding them bigger and stronger, so that they are better able to handle the stresses put on them. That is, your body adapts itself to external stress.

But after doing the same workout or even the same types of workouts for a few months, there is little stress that the body hasn't already encountered, so there's no reason to try to adapt. That's your plateau right there.

So the key is to keep your body under stress and keep it guessing. If it is always under new types of stress, it will have to continue adapting. That's great news for you as a mass builder. All you need to do to break through that plateau is confuse your muscles. There are plenty of ways to accomplish that.

1) Switch your exercises

The most obvious solution is to swap in new exercises periodically. For example, if you normally workout your chest on Tuesdays, after three weeks pass, rotate in a new gro

p of chest exercises. Same muscle, but different movement, which will continue to force your body to adapt.

2) Switch up weight or repetitions

Instead of always doing 3 sets of 10 repetitions, or 2 sets of 8, or whatever it is you do, switch up the weight and repetitions. Do more repetitions at a lower weight, or fewer repetitions at a higher rate. Just be sure to maintain the same intensity level.

3) Switch up the tempo

Most people gravitate towards a 1-1-1 tempo, that is, one second negative contraction, one second positive contraction, and 1 second of rest at the top of the move. Instead, double or triple the negative contraction one week; in the next week, switch to an explosive positive contraction; in the next, switch to steady state workouts and eliminate any rests at the top of the exercise.

4) Mix up your workout types

If you're following a solid workout plan, and by that, I mean one that is scientifically proven and current, you have a built-in form of muscle confusion. But anyone can add elements of these programs to their training. For example, drop a day of cardio and add in a high intensity interval training (HIIT) session. Drop a traditional strength day and add in a short Tabata session. Drop a core day and add in a kettleball session. You get the idea. These types of workouts feature varied moves, and they do wonders for both mass building and fat burning.

5) Perform compound movements

One of my favorite ways to keep my muscles working hard is to add compound and plyometric movements to each exercise. For example, instead of just doing a standard military press, you could perform a compound arm curl to swimmer's press movement, and then immediately follow that set up with five explosive clapping pushups.

The bottom line is that your body will try to adapt to whatever you throw at it. That means bigger and stronger muscles for you, provided that you continually force your body to adapt to new movements.

Your old school workout is useless. Thanks to advances in exercise science, we now know there are faster and more effective methods for muscle weight gain that also burn fat quickly. To learn how you can build mass, visit our blog where we share workout breakthroughs and review workouts and products to help you build muscle up quickly.