The Truth About Shocking Your Muscles and Muscle Confusion Revealed

Many bodybuilders are intrigued with these questions:

• Do you need to shock your muscles to make them grow? 
• Is Muscle Confusion required for bodybuilding? and
• Do you need to keep your muscles guessing to build them?

Mind works wonders, isn’t it? 

I doubt if it works!!!

Most intermediate bodybuilders who reach bodybuilding plateaus and even beginners who have little results to show for, begin to wonder such ideas.

Do you have to shock your muscles, confuse them or keep them guessing to make them grow? Many wonder!

When the results are difficult to come by, such “shock treatment” sounds interesting.

But IT IS A MYTH. If it was true hitting your quadriceps with a hammer would make it grow, not tear them down to oblivion!

But don’t believe it yet.

In this article you will learn:

• What is meant by Shocking your Muscles and Muscle Confusion
• The timeless principle of Progressive Resistance
• 26 Week Complete Muscle building Program
• Summary and Action Points

What is meant by Shocking Your Muscles and Muscle Confusion?

Can you shock your muscles, trick or confuse them into growing big?

The Answer is a Big No.

Yes, monotonous workouts week after week are a waste of time, but your body is more smart than you realise - it cannot be tricked or confused.

Shocking Your Muscles:

The idea behind this method is to train so train so drastically different from conventional methods, that the body goes into survival mode and builds lots of muscle mass.

This is a myth as provide a drastic change for your body and it reacts by shutting itself down.

Let me give you an example:

If you have ever been trekking, then you know that you need some basic conditioning. But shock your body trying to climb Mount Everest and see what happens.

Without proper acclimatisation {adjustment/adaptation}, you will soon develop pulmonary and cerebral edema. More climbers of died of these than the trek.

But instead go a higher peak, put up a base camp and get adjusted to the new environment for few weeks, your conditioning improves. 

See the difference in your body's reaction? Shock it and it will send you to the hospital. Stimulate it little more than before, it adapts. More on this below.

Lets talk about the second topic - Muscle Confusion:

It states, "Confuse your muscles by performing different workouts/exercises every week or so".

It is change for the sake of change.

Although there is some merit to this idea, it has been taken overboard. Only scientific, periodised training works, not indiscriminate/sudden training changes.

Remember, that adaptation to resistance training is specific. Perform high threshold exercises, and you build type II fibers. Perform low threshold, high rep exercises and you build type I fibers.

Wrong way: 

1. Week one: Shoulder press using the 5 sets of 10 reps method
2. Week two {drastic change}: 15 sets of 10 reps method.
3. Week three {another drastic change}: 10 sets of 5 reps

As you can your body needs time to adapt, to acclimatise. Such drastic changes confuse the body regarding your goal.

So how to train them for optimal muscle gains? Lets see the...

The Timeless Principle of Progressive Muscular Resistance

The Progressive muscular resistance principle is a "planned, systematic and progressive increase in training to improve your muscle building performance".

So instead of shocking muscles, you incrementally increase the sets/reps/rest intervals and your body adapts to this by increasing your muscle mass and strength.

This is the best, most effective muscle building strategy for beginners, intermediate and advanced bodybuilders.

The Progressive resistance or Overload article explains how to make the best of this principle.

But there are times when a unique twist to your workout program works. Lets find...

MI40X: How to Grow Week to Week

To build muscle mass, you got two options - create your own program or follow a plan written by an expert.

MI40X is an advanced muscle building program that I highly recommend. It is written by Ben Pakulski, a professional bodybuilder with extensive knowledge in muscle training and nutrition.

The best part: Ben knows how to put his knowledge in terms regular people can understand. 

Click here to learn more about the MI40X program.

Summary and Action Points

The only person shocked, confused and guessing why results are missing will be the one who believes in such useless methods.

Don't be one of them.

Use the timeless principles of "progressive resistance" and "one rep more" method and you will grow week after week.

When you need to change things, do them systematically as shown in the MI40X program.

To your results.