Exercise Variation, How Much Is Too Much And Does Muscle Confusion Work Or Not?

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IN TODAY’S ISSUE
Exercise Variation, How Much Is Too Much And Does Muscle Confusion Work Or Not?

In the beginning all you really need to do to grow muscle and get stronger is to show up, put some effort in and recover. The delightful Newbie Gains. Once past this stage things need a bit more planning to make long term progress.

A common road most people go down is to “shock the muscles” into growth, sometimes referred to as muscle confusion. The idea is that you shock your muscle with a new training stimulus everytime you train, because when your muscle adapts to your current training program, everything will stall.

Others may plan small amounts of variation throughout a mesocycle.

Today we will look at the science to check if this is actually the case.

Trying to workout which new move we can invent in the gym for extra gains 🤓👇

What You'll Find Out

• 🤓 Exercise Variation Background & Understanding

• 💪 A Systematic Review & Study On The Topic

• ✍️ TL:DR - Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

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WHAT’S UP
Exercise Variation Background & Understanding

VARIATION

Variation can include the manipulation of load, repetitions, rest times and exercise selection or order within a training program.

If you’ve spent any time around iron sports, you’ll be familiar with Westside Barbell and their Conjugate method style of training. Essentially they or you, will program your main lifts for your session in a month block, following a Month A - Month B - Month A pattern. In each month you will perform a different max effort lift week to week, this could be a competition lift, variation of a competition lift, using a speciality bar, utilising bands or chains, or to address a specific weakness. However there is structure to this method, following an upper lower 4x per week split, with exercises planned to repeat on a bi monthly basis.

Westside have produced some seriously strong lifters, so you can’t argue that their methodology doesn’t work.

SPECIFICITY

We also have the other side of the coin, where we know strength is a skill. A neuromuscular adaptation that needs to be practiced.

The stronger we are in a movement, the more weight we can lift for a certain number of repetitions, resulting in more mechanical tension with the same volume, resulting in more muscle growth…

TRACKABILITY

We then also run into the problem of trackability, (not really sure if that’s a real word, it sounded correct in my head, and “auto-correct” hasn’t auto corrected it like every 2nd other word I type).

Without performing the same movement, week to week, we will struggle to track our progress to implement progressive overload- A key principle in getting stronger and growing more muscle in the long term. Whether you add 2.5kg to the bar each week or another repetition to your set, we want the ability to increase our efforts week to week to drive adaptations.

WHAT NOW?

So what we want to know now is, should we include planned variations? How much exercise variation is too much and how often should you rotate movements in your program to see a benefit if there is one?

SCIENCE BRO
A Systematic Review & Study On The Topic

A systematic review by (Kassiano et al., 2022) looked at exercise variation and its effects on hypertrophy and strength outcomes. The review included 8 studies and a total of 241 subjects.

The findings for the review found that a small degree of planned variation seems to increase regional hypertrophy and maximise dynamic strength. However, excessive random variation of exercises may compromise performance and results.

A study published by (Baz-Valle et al., 2019) and co-authored by Brad Schoenfeld, had 21 resistance trained males take part in an 8-week resistance training program. 19 subjects completed the intervention, using either a fixed exercise selection or having exercises randomly varied each session via a computerized app.

• Both groups performed 3 sets of 6 exercises in total.

• Both groups trained 4x Per Week.

• Both groups performed 2x Upper / 2x Lower sessions per week. However the fixed group used a total of 12 different exercises during the intervention, where are the random group used 80 different exercises due to the app selecting the movement each time they trained.

At the end of the intervention, both groups had improved their maximal strength, body composition and muscle thickness.

However, despite both groups improving, the fixed group saw slightly better strength and muscle thickness gains when compared to the variation group.

On the other hand, the variation group saw their motivation to train raise more than the fixed group, from pre to post intervention, while the fixed group saw a slight decrease.

TL:DR
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

• Variation might be a good tool to use to increase your motivation and improve adherence to your training, which is factor #1 when it comes to making long term beneficial changes.

• Variation may also be a good thing, as to find what works best for you. Some people may not move well with certain lifts, or perhaps you find your best gains in higher or lower repetition ranges. Having some variation in your program allows you to find what works best for you.

• DON’T just randomly throw any exercise in, on any given day. This is, shown from the data, not optimal. Planned variations are fine, and may even work better in some cases. But randomised will lead to poor returns.

• If you have a very specific strength goal, ie. compete in a strength sport lifting a specific lift, then less variation might be better, focussing on specificity and trackability of progress. However some variation seems to be acceptable and may actually increase your performance, when used to address specific weaknesses.

• For most, tracking your main lifts you choose and practicing them week in week out, for months at a time before rotating them could be the best decision. While using your accessory lifts and isolation movements as your variation to allow for enjoyment in your training and reduce staleness.

Think of it as a trade off, too much exercise variation and you may impact your strength and hypertrophy results, where as some variation may benefit motivation and performance outcomes.

That’s it for today ✌️

If you have any questions you’d like answered, topics you would like discussed, or perhaps some feedback, email them over to me at: [email protected]

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