The Greatest Myth in Fitness

"I pretty much just want to concentrate on toning up."

Working in the fitness industry, I hear this phrase uttered several times per week. I am here to set the record straight today because I think if I hear this one more time I'm going to go buckwild.

I probably should have posted this on my trainer myspace page blog, but I need to speak frankly here.

Everyday when I ask people to describe their fitness goals I hear "I don't want to really bulk up, I just want to concentrate on toning." Or I hear "I basically want to lose weight and tone up."
Okay. You want to concentrate on tone. What, your tone of voice? The musical tone of your favorite song? The pitch of your guitar strings? Or do you mean the color tones of your favorite painting?

Okay, yes, I know what you mean. But please stop saying you want to "tone" your muscles. What you mean is you want your muscles to be more defined. You want to see more definition. You want to be cut. Say any of these but please stop saying "toning".

The only toning there is in the fitness arena refers to a state of contraction in the muscle. But everyone seems to be using it to mean getting definition or getting "cut", which is a fallacy.

Okay, this is the part where I start imparting fitness knowledge and stop being a smartass. This is where I could start this blog if it was on my trainer page.

The idea of toning that so many gym goers seem to have is really a myth. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you can't just make a muscle "look pretty".

Let's start by saying this; the number one determiner of how your body is structured is genetics. If there are a lot of cut and muscular framed people in your family, chances are you are going to be this way too. If there are a lot of thin-shouldered and lengthy people in your family, chances are you are going to be this way too. The same goes for any kind of body type really, and of course there are exceptions to every rule.

However, an overweight person may want to lose weight and become "cut", so they will go into the weight room and do a high rep, light weight routine, thinking this is the way to look "cut".

The idea of "physique specific training" is another myth. You can lift heavy weight and do lower reps to get stronger, and you can lift light weight and do higher reps to become more conditioned. But lifting either way so you will "look" a certain way is just not the way it works. It is genetics that determine your physique, and sure, you are going to get larger if you develop more muscle, and you may see a cut or two that you didn't see before. But you can't change from one body type to another.

Yet some claim that women should follow a light weight-high rep routine to "tone", shape, and sculpt. While there are few women that will have the potential to develop relatively large muscles, most don't. This is due to the fact that women have lower levels of testosterone, higher percentage of body fat, and shorter muscle bellies. A woman's bicep muscle is exactly the same as a man's. So women should strength train the same way as men do.

Ultimately, you can gain and lose muscle mass, you can gain and lose fat, but you cannot "tone" a muscle to make it look pretty. The "tone" that people are referring to will not come unless you lose body fat, yet even then, if your genetics have not preset this for your body, it may not happen at all. This is not to say though that with proper diet, strength training, and cardiovascular activity you can't completely change the look of your body. What I mean though is John Goodman can't turn into Brad Pitt.

I feel the need to mention this though, some bodybuilders who do bodybuilding shows do eat a certain way so that their muscles look a certain way. They cut their carbohydrate intake so low days before a show that their skin literally is pulling back against the muscle to create a more defined look. But this is not what most people are referring to when they tell me they want to train to look "toned".

All of us have a tendency to develop a certain kind of physique. Whether we use light weight/high reps or heavy weight/low reps, we will always be prone to develop the physiques that our genes have preset for us. Our muscles cannot be stimulated to become "cut" or "bulked". They either experience hypertrophy or atrophy. There certainly are proper and improper ways to train but there isn't a physique-specific way to train.

For the record though, as a trainer, I give anyone props for being in the gym or exercising anywhere to try to reach their goals. There really isn't a much better investment of your time than to workout. Because the world is full of people who won't do any activity then complain about their bodies. But for the love of God, stop saying you just want to tone! :)

D