My Answer To A P90X Post: Is Their Term, "Muscle Confusion", A Marketing Scheme?

By James Villepigue CSCS
Published 05/26/2009

Here's the Link to the original question and one of the posts makes mention of my Body Sculpting Bible books:
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/weightlifting/is-the-muscle-confusion-concept-described-in-p90x-literature-for-real-or-a-load-of-marketing-crap

Hi, my name is James Villepigue, and I am the author of the Body Scultping Bibles. Muscle Confusion, like Quincy points out, is nothing more than helping your body/muscles avoid hitting the dreaded training plateau. Muscle don't have the intelligence that many have claimed they have, but your body, as a whole, will naturally adapt to a stress (the many variables of weight training) over time.

Muscle Confusion is nothing more than a glorified name for periodization training; a specific type of training completed in various periods or blocks of time.

Some refer to these blocks/periods of time as Micro (shorter periods of specific types of training) & Macro (longer periods of specific types of training).

My co-author and I have referred to our proprietary periodization system as, "The 14-Day Body Sculpting Program". It' simply a means of changing up many of our training system's training variables (the different types of exercises, the sequence of exercises performed, the number of sets, reps, the amount of rest between sets, the tempo AKA speed of your lifts, the Time Under Muscular Tension, the amount of weight lifted, the total duration of your workouts, etc.

I am not one to put another training system down and to be truthful, I've personally heard some great things about P90X. I honestly don't think they claim to have invented a new concept known as their "Muscle Cinfusion". I believe that they simply coined a unique term to help differentiate their system from others and to me, that's just smart marekting. By the way, I have absolutely NO ties to P90X, I just like being straight forward with all of you.

My motto when it comes to training is this: The Best Workout Is The One That You're Not Currently On". This should sum up the muscle confusion concept, Periodization training or whatever you want to call it, as a whole.

Hope this helps clarify the confusion...Pun intended! ;)

Keep Going!

James Villepigue CSCS
www.BodyByJames.com

James Villepigue CSCS

James Villepigue, CSCS is an International Best Selling Author of over 22 books. Over the last 8 years, he has built one of the most successful fitness book franchises in history.

He has been involved in the health and fitness industries for over 17 years. With over one million copies of James’ books sold, he has helped many hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world—of all ages and from all walks of life—achieve extraordinary results to their body’s & their lives.

James is most passionate about sharing his mastery of getting people in their absolute best shape.

James V BodySculpting James has appeared on and is the Featured Fitness Trainer of “The Regis & Kelly Show" , The Maury Show and many other TV and radio shows. In addition to his books, he has written for national magazines like Fitness, Women's World, Muscle-Mag, Oxygen, Cosmopolitan, Self and Marie Claire.

James earned degrees from the New York College of Health Professions and Hofstra University, and is a graduate of the highly acclaimed Institute for Professional Empowerment Life/Business Coaching. He is Nationally Certified as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS©), under The NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association), a certified personal trainer with ACE (American Council on Exercise), ISSA (The International Sports Science Association) and the NBFE (National Board of Fitness Examiners).