Post your favorite ways to create muscle confusion when lifting weights:
First, mentally tell your muscles that you’re doing a specific exercise, but then at the last minute… switch and do something else.
While lifting with good form, start doing bad form randomly. Lots of confusion will ensue.
Go to the squat rack, put on 135 like you’re doing a warm up, put the bar on your traps, and then-BAM do some push presses, your body will never know what hit it.
Put some Salvia in your pre-workout shake. When you can’t tell which way is up, then you’ve created enough confusion.
I’ve told this (unfortunately true) story before, but one time I was going to do some snatches, and I got so pumped that I forgot what lift I was doing and cleaned it instead, still with a snatch grip. Never knew my arms would bend so far sideways. Hurt like hell. I was very confused though, and gained 20 pounds over night. (That part is made up)
I do cardio, then go to the locker room and strip down, get in the shower, and with the water hitting me and shampoo in my hair, I put soap in my eyes then… BAM I bust out my dumbells and start doing a little exercise I call “soap-blind flyes”.
I do my workout then go shower, pack and leave. Once I have one foot out the door I run back in and workout again. Not only do I confuse my muscles but the people working at the gym as well.
I always wondered what happens if you use different plates on each side… I guess the weight distributon i sa bad idea as the weight goes farther out? I’m actually curious now, damnit.
I just sit my muscles down, look at them with a stern face, and calmly say “I know you believe you understand what I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
[quote]CapnYousef wrote:
I always wondered what happens if you use different plates on each side… I guess the weight distributon i sa bad idea as the weight goes farther out? I’m actually curious now, damnit.[/quote]
Actually, the only thing that would result is a slight torque (assuming you hold the bar as you normally would) for the exact reason you stated. The center of mass of say, nine 5 lb plates is going to be farther out than the center of mass of a plate, which will lead to a slightly longer lever arm. Since torque = force * lever arm, if the force on both sides is identical and the lever arm of one is longer than the other, there will be a slight net torque on the bar.
…and to confuse my muscles, I just read them the above statement…
[quote]CapnYousef wrote:
I always wondered what happens if you use different plates on each side… I guess the weight distributon i sa bad idea as the weight goes farther out? I’m actually curious now, damnit.[/quote]
Actually, the only thing that would result is a slight torque (assuming you hold the bar as you normally would) for the exact reason you stated. The center of mass of say, nine 5 lb plates is going to be farther out than the center of mass of a plate, which will lead to a slightly longer lever arm. Since torque = force * lever arm, if the force on both sides is identical and the lever arm of one is longer than the other, there will be a slight net torque on the bar.
…and to confuse my muscles, I just read them the above statement…[/quote]
Close. There will be no net torque, but yes, reactionary forces supporting the bar will be different left to right. The center of gravity for the net mass of the bar changes. You then have the COG not in the center of bar. so if you are doing bench, the reactionary force on the side of the smaller plates will be higher, because the moment arm to the COG is shorter. Torques always balance in a statics problem. if they don’t it’s a dynamic problem.
Do the reps backwards, lower first then raise, they won’t know wtf is going on
Or count the reps in another language, they wont know when to quit, they’ll be saying to eachother “was that twelve just then?” “not sure” “oh well, lets carry on until it sounds like twelve”