There's No Such Thing as "Toning"
You see the word "toning" used all over the place in fitness and weigh training forums, magazines and web sites. Mostly, it's women referring to women and how they should train and get good shape. Is there such a thing as toning and if so, what does it mean?
I suspect that toning, as a term in the strength and conditioning and fitness industries, has arisen because of the one-time fear that women would build big muscles like some professional bodybuilding women have in the past. To alleviate that fear, the word toning evolved to imply that, with weights workouts, muscle just perked up a little with better shape -- rather than bulking up a lot. Toning was born!
With appropriate work, muscle will improve in shape in most people, even most women. Yet most of the improved definition you notice will come from reducing the layer of fat around the muscle. That's the only reasonable definition of toning that I consider to make sense. There is certainly no recognized scientific definition of toning in the strength and conditioning sciences -- it's a concept and not a discrete target.
Stick to 8 to 15 repetitions and three sets per exercise of a load that causes you to struggle on the last few repetitions and you can't go too far wrong. The idea that you should do high numbers of repetitions, say over 20, to get toned, has no factual basis at all. If you want to focus on strength, you need to do things a little differently, with fewer repetitions and heavier loads.
But toning . . . ? Forget it.
Comments
Hi, Paul -
Thanks for having the guts to try to erradict this myth.
I remind people virtually every day (and I’ve been in the fitness industry close to 30 years) there’s no such thing as “toning.”
The average American loses about 1/2 pound of muscle a year after the age of 25. That’s a total of ten pounds of muscle lost for a 45-year-old.
It’s that loss of muscle that makes us “un-toned.”
The key to improving the way your body looks is to regain the muscle you’ve lost due to inactivity.
Instead of being afraid of building muscle, more women should embrace it. It will get you back closer to the body you had at 25. – Stephen
Stephen Holt
2003 American Council on Exercise “Personal Trainer of the Year”
http://www.BabyBoomerFitnessAuthority.com
Amen to you both. I, too, try to fight this misconception with often frustrating results.
Muscles can get bigger, stay the same size or shrink.
You cannot shape or “tone” a muscle by using lighter weights or some magical number of repetitions.
The look that so many people want results from regular strength training and getting rid of the layer of fat covering the muscles.
Thanks guys. It makes sense.
I do not understand what it is about building muscle that scares women. I am female, I train several times a week, I work hard–and I look good. I know this because I turn heads at the gym, and people tell me how great I look. I do not look like a man or like a professional bodybuilder–I look like I work out! Also, people often think I am much younger than I am. I look BETTER at 44 than I ever looked at 25. Where does this feminine fear of weight training come from?! I agree that women should embrace building muscle. I would never go back to my 25-year-old “un-toned” body!!
Toning? Even personal trainer ask if you’re goals are to lean and tone or build muscle. I’d say to them as a woman build muscle. Then you know you get a great workout or plan. Women just can’t bulk up like men, we don’t have the hormones or the amount of muscle fibers. I wish it were easier. So in a sense women really do have to workout harder to achieve great results.
But even those personal training courses teach about toning. Which is surprising.
Good Post.