TONING IS A TOTAL MYTH: THE REAL TRUTH BEHIND BUILDING MUSCLE

BY: FITZ-GEORGE RATTRAY

“Toning” is not real, it only exists in the mouths of fitness sales people, misinformed/misleading trainers and coaches, and in the minds of generations of people influenced by the fitness industry.  To put it simply, toning is a strategic industry lie which is now a fitness myth.

Toning is believed to be a process of exercise which will result in a “toned” body, a body with fit looking but not excessive muscularity. This process is supposedly brought about by exercising the muscles including those in “trouble areas”, with the expressed goal of not making them bigger but tighter and more firm.

This concept is a physiological impossibility and is categorical garbage. The idea that muscle will become tight and less jiggly is not how muscles develop.  Muscles will not become “firmer” in your day to day life because of a few exercises. The development of muscles have a few variances, which are perceivable:

• Bigger or smaller through hypertrophy (growth) or hypotrophy (shrinkage)
• Stronger or weaker
• More conditioned (accommodate for shorter recovery time, greater endurance ability and speed) or less conditioned
• More effective stretching or shortening

The deception of toning was born out of the fear expressed by women, that although they didn’t want to have unwanted jiggling, they did not want to become muscular and look manly, nor did they want to lift heavy weights.

Deceptively, but smartly (or perhaps in some cases ignorantly) gym owners, exercise instructors, trainers and coaches, assured these women that they could tighten their muscles without making them “bulky”, by using lighter weights, body weight, bands with light to medium resistance, higher repetitions and at times incorporating more movement, perhaps aerobic or dance.

LIKE IT OR NOT HERE ARE THE FACTS

Flexed muscle is firm, relaxed muscle, being mostly water is jiggly. Fat is jiggly, tight skin is well, tight, and stretched out or weakly elastic skin is lose, finally, bone is rigid; so, ultimately it comes down to what you are made of between your bones and skin and the elasticity of your skin.
If you have:

• little body fat and have never stretched out your skin, your body will appear tight (non-jiggly, “toned”) even if you have very little muscle
• large muscles and your skin is tight you will appear tight

• excess body fat and have damaged the connection between your skin and your muscle’s fascia (the sheet of connective tissue which acts like a glue between skin and muscle) then
  • If your skin is still elastic and tight you may not appear jiggly
  • If your muscles are smaller you may appear more jiggly
  • If your muscles are larger you will appear less loose and jiggly
• If you are losing fat, lessening the fat under the skin
  • Less muscle will naturally mean less utilized volume between the skin and more, resulting in a loose jiggly appearance
  • Increased muscle will be needed to occupy as much of that space left from the loss of fat to avoid a loose jiggly appearance and feel.

TO SUMMARISE

1. Little muscle, little body fat but stretched skin, you will appear jiggly and lose.
2. Excess fat, less muscle, more jiggly.
3. Larger muscles, less jiggly (this is why tummy tucks are often the only solution for the waist. Often a lot of fat is lost, but the muscles of the waist do not grow and occupy a much greater relative volume).

When loosing fat, Increased muscle will be needed to occupy as much of that space left to avoid a loose jiggly appearance and feel.

HERE IS THE FACT

The ONLY solutions to avoid “jigglyness” are,

1. Tighter skin, which only youth, genetics and surgery can significantly provide you. Do not waste time and money believing that products will help
2. More subcutaneous fat: worst solution ever fated to be a long term disaster
3. More muscle: a solution filled with a world of benefits.

And there is only one effective way to significantly increase muscle and this is through progressive resistance training.  You have to activate the muscle under tension, resulting in (perfectly natural) microscopic tears, which will heal with nutrition and rest resulting in muscle hypertrophy (growth).  It is proven that this is most effectively attained with resistance, which the individual will consider heavy. So heavy in fact that instead of dancing or hopping around with the weight, they may only be able to accomplish 3 to 10, perhaps 12 repetitions, essentially training like a bodybuilder, as, of course, that is what is needed, muscle building.

Toning is a nonsense principle and term, a weak hollow euphemism, designed to deceive and capitalize on ignorance and unfounded fears.

But do not fear, if your goal is to avoid a manly, bulky appearance, rest easy. That appearance takes more time and dedication that you can likely find, and often still, only with the use of anabolic steroids. If you are a female, you can rest even easier, that bulky look requires a level of testosterone that the very great majority of women can never have.  So, as hard as you try, at best you will simply look the way one should; athletic, healthy and fit.

Most of what most people are told and believe are lies, and it has cost lives and wellness.  It is time to put the damaging nonsense, the foolish fears, the easy way out mindedness, the shortcut mentality out of your life, and separate yourself from marketing “facts”, street “facts” gym “facts” and just focus and live will with logical, scientific and tested facts.