Dear Mel,
Are you and your friends improving your loads lifted with your 'toning
techniques'? If so and you have not spotted any increase in muscle bulk
there are other mechanisms you are improving such as your neuronal control.
If your loads nave not increased then may be it is the training regime. The
literature backs several different ways to increase muscle bulk. Another
factor is your dietary intake, do you consume enough substrate to increase
bulk? Are your muscle groups being worked through their entire range and
concentrically and eccentrically? Are you comprehensive in training all
your 'power' muscles? Does any of the above matter if you have not been
kitted out with the genetic hardware from birth? Lastly the better you
become (the more you lift), the more difficult it is to improve as the
margin for improvement is less the closer you rise to your theoretical
ceiling.
Anyway you need to keep 'toning' because if you stop now your clothes won't
fit you any longer.
Simon Mesner B.Sc. (HONS) MCSP SRP Cert. P.S. (Sports Physiotherapy)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 16 November 1999 04:29
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: TONING?
>
> 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
> [log in to unmask]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|