The Truth About "Toning"
What you may not know is that using lighter weights isn't necessarily going to lead to a more 'toned' body. If you want more definition, you have to lose more fat and doing hundreds of reps of an exercise isn't the best way to do that. In fact, it's just the opposite - lifting heavier weights and staying withing about 8-16 reps can help you get more defined. By challenging your muscles with more resistance than they can handle, you're building muscle and muscle is more metabolically active than fat. That means, the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn overall. Add in some cardio and a healthy diet to create a calorie deficit, and you're on your way to a leaner body.
If you've been focusing on higher reps (say, more than 20) to get more toned or you've been worried that lifting heavy weights will make you blow up like an oversized gorilla, maybe it's time to learn more about the myth of toning. These resources offer more detailed information about what 'toning' really means:
Comments
tone has historically been defined as residual muscle contraction, i.e., the amount of contraction that continues to occur without further intentional contraction to shorten fibers
Paige,
This was a very informative article. My daughter is high school basketball player and she wants to get toned. I originally had her increase her cardio and reduce her weight training with the emphasis on high reps (for us that is 20 max though). I think your insights here are good. We will continue on the increased cardio, but I want to keep the reps with heavier weight between the 8 and 16 reps you mentioned.
I assume you were talking mainly with respect to women about blowing up as we men tend not to get upset about “blowing up like an oversized gorilla”
Thanks for the article. There’s so much misinformation out there, including this item. Really what people mean by “toned” is lose fat or gain muscle…usually both.
Is there an upper age limit to tone, strengthen or define muscle?
No Donald, there is no real upper age limit. It would certainly take more work the older you get but it’s still possible to achieve good shape.
The one thing I would dispute within this article is that it suggests you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time, this isn’t necessarily true as you have to have a Calorie deficeit in order to lose fat and an increase in Calories to achieve muscle growth (with muscle stimulation of course).
There is a distinction between burning off fat and burning calories from exercise.
A slow walk or moderate exercise should burn off more fat than produce muscle. A vigorous or cardio walk/run or strenuous exercise should strengthen muscle.
I alternate between max exertion and moderate exertion workouts on an elliptical machine. The max heart rate level burns more calories. The hill exercise on a treadmill or elliptical will vary the exertion level where the fat burning predominates at the bottom of the hill, the calorie burning at the top of the hill. I like the balance of this kind of routine because it varies the work load of the muscles, and allows the muscles some recovery from the hill peaks during the workout.
I don’t see much the point in isolating fat burning from calorie burning. Fitness is the goal, and weight loss and muscle strengthening with balance and coordination will occur with enough moderate to strenuous regular exercise.
As long as the exertion level varies during the workout, the fat will be reduced, muscle mass increased, and metabolism increased as a result.
Additional personal observations.
Sometimes we isolate or focus on a single item or facet of something, and lose the bigger picture.
The bigger picture in weight loss/fitness is the goal of improving overall health. It’s fine to isolate muscles or muscle groups as long as we take a holistic and synergistic approach to fitness. If we’re going to concentrate on developing the arm muscles, I think it’s important to develop the back and leg muscles along with it. To me, it’s like dropping a performance engine in a sub-compact car: unless we upgrade the transmission, suspension, coolant systems, the performance engine in and of itself will render an un-driveable car.
It’s fine to isolate muscle groups, as long as the total body fitness is considered and included. A bottom-up approach may make sense. Perhaps develop the leg muscles first, then the back, torso, and arm muscles. Concentrating on arm muscles alone may permit us to lift heavier weights, but the back and leg muscles need to support the lifting. The whole-body approach will also improve balance and coordination as side-effects. By developing the leg muscles first, through walking/running, the respiratory and blood circulation will also improve and better support upper body and arm muscle development.