Plateus Muscle Confusion ect

I am early out in my exercise routines just started becoming consistent in January...I keep hearing that if you do the same workout for a long period of time then the body becomes used to it and it stops working. Is this true? If you are still sweating and cant hold a conversation then the workout must be still working?????

I do believe that you need to continually adjust your routine.
1.  As you lose weight, your walking/running won't burn as many calories per hour as it does now.
2. You do get good at doing a repititous workout over and over again.  You don't have to lift more, you could just do more reps.  But something to shake up the workout.
3.  The question to ask yourself about seating and holding the conversation is do you feel like you could do more, or are you absolutely wiped out.  If you feel like you have more to give, then you probably did.  Don't hurt yourself, but honestly critique your workout.  Am I tired, or am I just tired of doing this?  They are two different questions.  You just need to be honest.  Most of the time people are tired of doing it more than they are tired.

Scott

I think people are taking this P90X "Muscle Confusion Fad" to the extreme... We are talking about us Obese and formerly Obese folks that barely even walked. If you are getting out there and making it happen. and working up a sweat, YOU ARE DOING GREAT!!!! I think muscle confusion is mostly pertinent after you get to an average or below average body fat % and want to absolutely get shreaded. Don't focus on the hype, focus on daily activity, which is what you are doing, and you will be awesome! Kudos for working hard!!! I watch people "Think" their way out of workouts and fitness because they follow the latest health trend or fad, ei... "Get ripped abs in just 3 minutes a day!!!".... The bottom line, hard work = results.

"I keep hearing that if you do the same workout for a long period of time then the body becomes used to it and it stops working. Is this true?"

To answer your question... NO, THAT IS NOT TRUE.... I primarily swim, bike, and run with some sporatic weight lifting... However, I swim, bike, and run EVERYDAY... My body has NOT stopped working, I get faster and stronger everyday from HARD work, not from confusing my muscles... I guess I could walk backwards on a treadmill, or climb the stairmaster sideways like some of these people do at the gym to "Confuse my muscles"... But WHY??? I don't want to get good at walking sideways or backwards, I want to get fast at running straight ahead, so that's what I do. Confuscious Say:

Practice like you play... If you want to run a marathon backwards, run everyday backwards, if you want to crawl a 5k, crawl everyday... If you want to ride 100 miles on a unicycle, ride a unicycle everyday... There is little "Confusion" in my mind!

I have completely different results than what Dan is talking about.
If I do a leisurely 5k run every day, I don't get any better.  I have gotten great at doing my 5k at x pace.  I need to challenge and make it harder to see improvement.  If I continue to run my 5k at a 12 minute mile, then that's all I'm ever going to be able to do.  That challenge increases the calorie burn rate and help me to improve. 
I could lift 5 pound weights all day long and at some point I'm going to see a diminshing return.
At some point I am going to have to increase the weights.

You will burn more calories at 400 pounds than you will at 200 pounds for the same exercise.
So to burn more calories when you drop the weight you need to increase the intensity or the duration or both. 

It isn't about muscle confusion it's about work quantity and quality.

Scott

Now when I say run, bike, and swim everyday... I do NOT mean 5 miles a day at the same pace... Each week I have 3 specific things to work on in each discipline of Triathlon. They are as follows...

Minimums:

Swim: 1 Speed workout, 1 strength workout (Pull bouey and paddles), 1 Endurance swim (Usually 4k-5k)... That's 3 FOCUSED swim workouts a week...

Bike: 1 Speed workout, 1 strength workout (Hill repeats) or (Overgear work), One endurance or base ride 40+ miles... That's 3 FOCUSED Cycling workouts per week

Run: 1 Speed workout (Have not been doing much since I have been training for Ultra distances, but started speedwork up last week again), 1 strength workout (Hill repeats or "BRICKS"), and 1 Endurance / Base run (15+ miles)... That's 3 FOCUSED run workouts every week.

That equal 9 SOLID workouts... I DO NOT want to confuse my muscles... Training is about teaching your body to respond to do what you tell it to do, confusion will just merky up the water, unless you are just trying to get muscle tone and mass, which is still an awesome goal....

I didn't think she was talking about muscle confusion.  At least the way I read it.  I think she was talking about becoming good at a particular exercise or activity to the point where it isn't much of a workout for her any longer.  Not so much of confusion as challenging. 

I don't think the exercise stops working, you just see diminishing returns, you can use it to maintain, but to get faster, increase endurance etc., I think you need to increase those things.  If I never ran more than a 5k, or rode more than 10 miles, I'd probably never have made it through a century ride or a 1/2 marathon.

I think that a good base is developed and she will burn calories and no it won't quit working, but she will see a diminished return on burned calories.  When I was 400+ I'd burn over 1k calories walking 3 miles, Now I have to run for over an hour to accomplish that.  Did the muscles stop working, absolutely not.  Did the results I was getting slow down, yes they did until I picked up the exercise and started to challenge myself a little bit.

Scott

Thankx for the responses guys......someone's been up late watching infomercials


Anyway....you all are right. I am working out and that is HUGE for me for the first time in my life. I will pay attention to my body honestly and keep pushing (without hurting myself)...and I will leave the 'confusion'  out of (at least) this area of my life.