Your body is constantly adapting, and your muscles are no exception. While hitting the weights is the first step toward building muscle mass, performing the same tired routine over and over can quickly lead to muscle boredom, and your progress will plateau. By varying the ways you stimulate your muscles, you'll "confuse" your muscles to prevent them from fully adapting.
Muscle Boredom
As you strength train, you'll notice your muscles becoming larger and more defined. Such changes are a result of your body adapting to the stress put on it during your training sessions. As long as you continue to push your body beyond what it's used to, you'll continue to see results. At some point during your training, you'll reach your body's adaptation threshold, the point where your current routine simply does not stress your muscles enough to trigger new growth, explain Tudor Bompa and Michael Carrera in their book "Periodization Training for Sports."
Importance of Muscle Confusion
While you can theoretically make continuous progress by upping your repetitions or resistance level, there are only so many reps you can practically complete and only so much weight available to lift. Adding variety to your routine means you'll constantly be subjecting your muscles to stimuli they are not accustomed to, and you'll continue to make strength and size progress. In addition to the physical benefits, varying your workout helps fend off boredom and boost motivation.
Methods
The most fundamental way to incorporate muscle confusion into your workout is by changing the exercises you perform for each muscle group. If you usually do bench presses for your chest, switch to dumbbell flyes. Making small changes to the way you do a given exercise also will stimulate your muscles in a new way. Instead of performing bench press on a flat bench, try it on an incline or decline bench, or with dumbbells or machine. Finally, change the order of your workout to fatigue your muscles in a different sequence than they're used to.
Timing
Nicholas Evans, author of the book "Men's Body Sculpting," recommends making small changes to your workout each time you exercise. At the least, switch up your workout every four to eight weeks, or whenever you notice your progress slowing down.
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