What is Muscle Confusion? Does it Work?

If you don't know the guy in the picture to the left, you've probably heard of his home workout program, P90X, and the theory behind it - muscle confusion. But do you know what muscle confusion is? And why it's supposed to work?

I've noticed recently that there's a bit of a debate online about whether or not this whole theory of muscle confusion is real or not. I'd say that's totally understandable given the fact that there's not a lot (or any) scientific evidence to back up this theory.

First, what is it? Well, the theory behind muscle confusion is that when you choose to do a traditional type workout, you get into a routine where you do the same things over and over again. And eventually you stop noticing changes in your body. Muscle confusion changes your routine so that your muscles are constantly wondering what's coming next and they continue to change.

As I mentioned before, there's not really a whole lot of evidence behind this theory, unless you count the thousands of people who put amazing transformation videos on YouTube and the fact that the creator of the program, pictured in this post, is 50 something and has a bloody amazing body, but there is another plateau theory that is sort of proven. That'd be that awful plateau that you hit when you're in the process of dieting and losing weight. If you've ever tried to lose weight, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For no good reason, one day you just stop losing pounds. For most people, a change in diet or exercise will break the plateau and get the weight falling off again. Muscle confusion is just the same thing for muscle building or toning.

Personally, I think there is some truth behind it, but I've recently come across another blogger who is sort of putting the theory to the test by doing his own muscle confusion challenge. Instead of doing the traditional P90X workout, he's mixing it up with two other workout programs to create his own challenge. He'll be doing it for 90 days and will be posting daily updates as well as weekly pictures of his physical progress. The week one changes are pretty amazing when you consider it's only been seven days. You can follow along at the muscle confusion challenge, if you're interested.