BodyBlitz wrote:Muscles confusion seems like a nice marketing gimmick for periodizing volume and heavy loading though.
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I agree that it does sound like a good gimmick for that, but it does have a sound of truth in it.
I mean we condition to lift a weight we have never lifted, by conning the brain, that we will lift that weight, but really we have no intentions of doing a rep, right, it's the same difference, and it is a fact that muscles get accustomed to lifting, and no matter how, you want to lift the bugger, you just cannot do it.
So there is a grain of truth, that training the muscle from different angles, will in fact benefit the muscle, but it's individual because are structures and mechanics are all different, but injury is also a problem, so one of knowing the comfort zone must be appreciated in difficult lifting combinations, not to put to much stress on the frame work. You can do this by taking a 5 or 10kg weight and experimenting on the biceps and triceps, training the triceps is not easy for many because of the angle of the weight, must be moved to an angle until one can feel the triceps directly under stress, otherwise the muscle doesn't get worked, so you have to feel your way to the right lift. actually the same with biceps, it's related to wrist movement, to get the full beneficial lift.
In my 20's i was quite a champion of arm wrestling, until one day, the inevitable happened, my humerus fractured like a bamboo cane, what did i learn from that. The fact that arm wrestling has nothing to do with strength and a lot to do with torque, so I have never take on the challenge, unless I want to break someone humerus

and believe me it is quite a simple thing to do, when you load stress on a bone, with a muscle pressing on the bone too for support.
So the specialist said to me you broke your own bone, with muscle pressure, and the fact your opponent, was twisting the wrist at the same time I was using muscle pressure on the bone at an angle. You see some people have the ability to lock their joints, nothing to do with muscle at all, so the only way to go is to break, the weakest point, then the angle or pressure is changed. So I'm a believer of muscle confusion to a certain extent and the need for change of posture and weight, that one is comfortable with, one should never strain in a lift.
If you think of an egg, you may get my message, the structure of an egg, is that it can take a massive load on the shell from the top or bottom, but not from the sides, if you attempt the same with weights, your body will crumble at its weakest point you expose it too. And that includes lifting heavy deadlifts, if there is a weakest link in the spine it's going to pop, without support, it could be because of weight or angle, you will never know, until it happens.
I've seen it all in the gyms in my time and the ones using steriods are not in it for lifting, but sculpturing the body, they cannot lift, because that isn't what they train for, so it's kind of ironic when one challenges another in strength, because normally the one challenging has been training in that specific weight and lift. It makes a bigger mockery of it, when someone that has never trained comes along and just does it for the fun of doing it.

and that's lifting technique rather than strength!