The concept of muscle tone is taught to PTs very early in one's career, but a
bot later on one finds that this concept becomes thoroughly abused in the
general fitness world.
The fitness concept of toning is something akin to the concept of cellulite,
something that was invented to stroke the fatness and aerobics anti-muscle
market. The term is still very popular in the aerobics (should I now be
politically correct and call it 'group fitness' training?) setting , where
one always comes across at least one class a day being advertised in most
gyms to offer "stretch and tone".
Somehow, "toning" is believed to be a lesser evil than strength or resistance
training, or worse still, bodybuilding. Its magical qualities mean that
muscles do not bulge or grow, but just become exquisitely honed and toned
without strain and pain!
Would someone kindly explain exactly what the real difference is between
"toning" and muscle or resistance training? It is nothing more than training
with incidental resistance that produces minimal muscle bulk, is it not? So,
why not call it "light resistance training" then?
It is interesting to point out that, after a certain period of Olympic
lifting (and other forms of strength training), one's muscle bulk remains
constant for many years (since one continues to lift in the same bodymass
division). In other words, once you have become an experienced lifter whose
bodymass has stabilised in a given division, then no matter how heavy your
training, you do not bulk up any more.
Does that mean that I and all of my older lifting colleagues are now simply
doing "toning" exercise? Imagine that - our huge superheavyweight lifting
friends, Aleyev and Reding, were doing "toning" training for all those
years!!
Well, it's time to go to the gym for my weightlifting session - on tonight's
main menu is push pressing, clean pulling, squatting and bench pressing - a
wonderful collection of 90%1RMs to do some more "toning"!
Some of my older bodybuilding pals are sick and tired of all the "toning"
that they have been doing for many months - they haven't built up for ages
now and they have really been pushing the loads!
It seems as if a great deal of lifting and bodybuilding exercises sooner or
later become "toning" exercises, irrespective of the loads and volumes that
one may use. Does this imply that the entire concept of "toning" is
determined by the effects of adaptation to progressive loading or is one
justified in applying the concept of "toning" universally without any
qualifiers?
Is one justified in defining "toning" exercise as a regime that produces
little or no soft tissue hypertrophy? Or do we have to admonish users of
such a definition that the training of experienced competitive lifters does
not produce hypertrophy and thus should also be called "toning" training?
Mel Siff
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
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