Muscle Confusion? Ray Wright making a difference

[painekiller]

On the official site the videos have been coming in as a few of the player have appearing to get a head start on voluntary workouts.

Ray Wright did not get the biggest cheer when his promotion was announced. As a workout novice, or at least when it comes to the new stuff, I hear things like muscle confusion and really have no idea what that means.

I know there is some on TT.com that blamed the old strength coach with all the injuries we have had over the years. Another school thought he had designed his program for late season success and that lead to early season collapse.

Well Wright has begun his new program and the players are noticing a difference.

Mike Briesel and Xavier Adibi both kinda talk about the program on the official site. Check out the videos.

[superbowlbound]

This should be fantastic for the team. The concept of muscle confusion is this: When you begin a workout regiment, you start to see results very quickly, be it in shed pounds, increased strength, whatever. Then, as you begin to settle in to your workout routine, your gains level off, because your body adapts to the excercises, so they become, in a sense, easier. Thus you would have to increase the intensity of the workouts in order to see the same results, which can result in injury. In order to combat that, you cycle workout regiments in blocks of a few to several weeks, so that every month to 6 weeks, you're doing new excercises that use new stabilizer muscles, jump starting the effects and increasing overall fitness. So instead of doing free weights, you work with medicine balls, bands, plyometrics, etc.

I have a buddy that used to be a powerlifter, so he's a beast, but had gotten kinda fat. works out all the time, but still, kinda fat. He got that p90x thing off the tv, which is based on muscle confusion, and got shredded in 3 months, as in the dude could be on the cover of men's health. Muscle confusion is legit.

[painekiller]

Originally Posted by superbowlbound

I have a buddy that used to be a powerlifter, so he's a beast, but had gotten kinda fat. works out all the time, but still, kinda fat. He got that p90x thing off the tv, which is based on muscle confusion, and got shredded in 3 months, as in the dude could be on the cover of men's health. Muscle confusion is legit.

I've done Power90, so I do understand this stuff. Thanks for setting me on the correct path. BTW P90 works, as long as you do the workouts.

[papabear]

Originally Posted by painekiller

BTW P90 works, as long as you do the workouts.

There's always a catch isn't there. As soon as someone finds something that works without doing the workouts they can sign me up.

[WMH]

Originally Posted by papabear

There's always a catch isn't there. As soon as someone finds something that works without doing the workouts they can sign me up.

AMEN to that! I am still waiting for the sit around, eat potato chips and drink beer diet and watch the pounds just shed away.

On topic, when Riley did not recieve a contract, and Dick Justice when bonkers, I was thinking....what's the big deal? It's not like we have a great health record, regardless of the way he is supposedly regarded in the biz. Has he found another job yet?

I am glad to see they are trying something different.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by superbowlbound

This should be fantastic for the team. The concept of muscle confusion is this: When you begin a workout regiment, you start to see results very quickly, be it in shed pounds, increased strength, whatever. Then, as you begin to settle in to your workout routine, your gains level off, because your body adapts to the excercises, so they become, in a sense, easier. Thus you would have to increase the intensity of the workouts in order to see the same results, which can result in injury. In order to combat that, you cycle workout regiments in blocks of a few to several weeks, so that every month to 6 weeks, you're doing new excercises that use new stabilizer muscles, jump starting the effects and increasing overall fitness. So instead of doing free weights, you work with medicine balls, bands, plyometrics, etc.

I have a buddy that used to be a powerlifter, so he's a beast, but had gotten kinda fat. works out all the time, but still, kinda fat. He got that p90x thing off the tv, which is based on muscle confusion, and got shredded in 3 months, as in the dude could be on the cover of men's health. Muscle confusion is legit.

Great post and reply. I asked my trainer about muscle confusion this morning. I wondered because I am always doing different exercises for all different muscle groups, and post made me bring it up. You captured the essence of muscle confusion perfectly. I've been training with that method and it has made a huge difference from the usual stuff I had been doing on my own for years.

[Keith]

Quote from Andre Davis on the official about Ray Wright:

“I think he is going to switch it up this year with muscle memory type routines. You get so used to doing a certain routine that your muscles get used to that. When you switch it up a bit, it gets other muscles in your body that you haven’t worked out or smaller muscles that you don’t usually work – he works on those so you don’t have the nicks and bruises or they will heal faster because the whole body is working better together as a whole.”

And here's the best part:

To emphasize muscle isolation, Wright has redesigned the weight room, removing a handful of weight machines and adding free weight stations.


“From walking in there, the weight room is completely different,” wide receiver Kevin Walter said. "There’s not as many machines as there used to be. The warm up is a little different.”

Still more changes, and some insight into Duane Brown this offseason:

Wright also has added optional yoga and Jiu Jitsu classes to increase the players’ flexibility.

“I’m excited about that,” left tackle Duane Brown said. “I know it’s going to help me out a lot with my flexibility. I tried to do it in college a couple of times, but I just couldn’t get it. But maybe with the setting being a little different and me being with my teammates, I will feel a little more comfortable doing it.”

Brown spent the offseason slimming down to improve his mobility in the team’s zone blocking scheme and said he could feel the effects of the new program upon leaving the weight room.

I did a bit of yoga last year, and it really improved my balance. Enough about me though...

Walter has planned to combat any soreness this offseason by spending time in his hyperbaric chamber, a pressurized chamber that pumps out air with increased oxygen levels.

“You’ve got to do everything to put yourself in the best position to be successful, and I think that (hyperbaric chamber) does,” Walter said.

Click the link above to read the full article.

[papabear]

I like what I've heard so far about the new weight program. Although no ones confirmed if the Redskins ever did anything like this back in the day. We all know that a weight programs only good if it;s the same one the Redskins used 20 years ago.

Side note, I think the hyperbaric chamber is probably B.S, if Walter is convinced it helps then it probably will even if it's only through the placebo effect.

[Keith]

Stephanie wrote a bunch more on the changes with the new offseason conditioning program.

http://blogs.chron.com/texanschick/2...tioning_1.html

As I've discussed before, under the old program, the primary focus was lifting machine weights and then doing skilled pattern running for the player's position (like running patterns for wide receivers, or dropping back and rolling out for quarterbacks). As illustrated by this old Texans strength and conditioning manual (pdf link), machine lifting was used because the thought is that you can lift more weight if you take the skill of lifting and balancing out of the movement (p 49-61).

I don't know about you, but if my primary method of lifting was only machine weights, I would be bored out of my skull in short order. ...