You need to shock your muscles to keep building them = myth

[DJRAZR]

This one really makes me laugh. The idea behind this myth is that you need to change your training routine and exercises as a way to surprise your muscles and get a fresh reaction out of them. Yeah right.

Think of your bicep; like your other muscles, it attaches between two points and contracts in a straight-line direction. When it contracts, your elbow bends. Your elbow always bends in the same direction. There is no variation whatsoever. So you can lift bricks or you can lift the bar on a $5,000 exercise machine, and the action of your biceps will be the same. So where is the shock? Why would your biceps say, "Whoa, today we're suddenly lifting a dumbbell instead of a barbell! Better pack on some more size!"?

Here's another variation. The gym lore goes like this: "Train on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then your body 'expects' a workout on Sunday... but you 'shock' it by waiting until Monday." Apart from the false premise that your body will "expect" a workout when your brain knows it isn't going to happen, is the presupposition that your body never figures out this is a repeating cycle with the Sunday workout always missing. Week after week your body is "shocked" that the Sunday workout is skipped. Please!

Muscles are not shocked by variation in exercise. They are designed to tolerate it. Similarly, your stomach is not shocked that you ate spaghetti on Tuesday after not eating it for a month. Rational, productive strength training is easy. What's difficult is seeing past all the bad advice that is freely dispensed in the gym.

Until next time, Train Smart!

 

[Legion Kreinak]

Very good post, I think. Karma to you!

 

[CrimsonKing]

I disagree ... I think the flaw is in the examples you use.

Variation in exercise does lead to continual adaptation but this is primarily form variation in speed, volume, cadence, and intensity of weight as related to your 1 rep max.

That is one of the fundamentals of Westside Barbell Training

 

[mekannik]

So I guess Poliquin, Simmons, and even Arnold are wrong? Good try. Come back when you have an original thought.



Poliquin and Simmons are, by far, two of the most influential trainers in North America - and neither one is going to limit their athletes to one lift for each bodypart. Take a look at almost any Poliquin program (yes - there are lift specific programs, but I ackowledge that for another reason) and you will find a proliferation of excercises, rep schemes, and cadences. Poliquin himself advocates changing up excercises every 3-6 weeks depending on the adaptability of your body to the system.

The point being that once your body adapts to a lift, less and less muscle fibers are recruited as your body learns what is needed from it. By changing the lift (i.e. stimulus) you change your body (i.e. output).


And with Simmons - while he coaches the powerlifters in WSB, why would he advocate board presses, floor presses, JM presses, reverse hypers, band training, and swiss ball work?

Unless of course you would like to tell these men they're wrong....

 

[erickthegreat11]

I used to think this was totally bogus as well. Then I tried it when I got stale, and it worked. It almost always works for everyone, it should be written in stone. Your brain controls voluntary muscle contractions. Therefore, in a way, your muscles are part of your nervous system. It needs variety to be stimulated. Think of it this way. If you did the same, exact thing every day at work, and nothing ever changed, you'd get stupid, or stay the same. It's the same with weightlifting.

 

[abc 1]

is this opinion or fact? show some studies to prove that shocking the muscle doesn't work, until then make up a better "myth debunkting story".

you are very wrong and extremely misinformed.

the body is an adaptive organism which means it will figure out a way to move using the least amount of muscle tissue (this is to conserve energy in case of starvation periods). it does this by learning the movement and then figuring out how to fire the cns to activate just enough tissue to function. do the same workout over and over and watch just how the body does this.

i am interested in where you came up with this, it must be some of the most ridiculous dribble i've ever read. the fact that you posted it with such arrogance is the best part because it's obvious you have no idea what your talking about.

until next time, get educated before you post bullshit.

 

[Tarheel]

the body is an adaptive organism which means it will figure out a way to move using the least amount of muscle tissue (this is to conserve energy in case of starvation periods). it does this by learning the movement and then figuring out how to fire the cns to activate just enough tissue to function. do the same workout over and over and watch just how the body does this.

Exactly what I was going to say, I just didn't know how to word it as well as you did.

Its all about the central nervous system and nerve passways.

 

[JDarty6173]

DJRAZR , tell you what... You stick to the exact same program (exercises, sets, reps, tempo..etc...) for the next year while I continue following Westside's conjugated periodization principals.. Then at the end of the year I want you to explain why I gained 25 pounds LBM and added a few hundred pounds to my 3 lift total, while you made very little gains and likely started to lose strength.... Let me guess, because you were right? Peace

 

[Zyglamail]

This has got to be the funniest thing I have read all day. Isnt increasing weight as you get stronger in a sense shocking the muscles? Hard to get stringer if you keep moving the same weight

 

[bishonen]

Similarly, your stomach is not shocked that you ate spaghetti on Tuesday after not eating it for a month. Rational, productive strength training is easy. What's difficult is seeing past all the bad advice that is freely dispensed in the gym.

So vegetarians who get ill when eating meat and whose bodies are unable to digest animal proteins after prolonged periods of only eating plants - that's all in their heads?