Why You Don’t Want To Be Toned

“I want to get toned”

I have heard this saying or some bastardized phrasing like this for years.  I have been working through yoga instruction and group fitness for 5-6 years now.  It’s not to say I’m some expert, but I do pay attention to trends.  It’s tough enough to have people give themselves a goal outside of “I want to lose weight, fast”. But I almost count “get toned” or “get sculpted” as counterproductive to overall progression. I believe the misled thought is to appear leaner but “toned and sculpted” should simply be considered as adding muscle. Though muscle does show better when lean, however there must be muscle, nonetheless. Women (as I mansplain, right) think touching a barbell will make these giant man gains immediately. Now, opening jars is cool and all, but is that a just a man-thing? Being strong is awesome!  Life is tough enough when we feel like we are weak. No one should want to feel weak. We should always be kind to ourselves and know we are getting better. Maybe this helps to set a general goal.  “I want to (blank) better”. Going forward, I want to be toned/sculpted is “I want to add muscle better”.

If you want to change, you cannot stay the same.  That’s literally insane.

I have watched individuals grab the same 3-pound weights and never go past 5-pound weights for a year or more. They take 8 classes a week, then complain they are not as sculpted as other classmates. “They don’t work as hard as me”, as they glare over their lesser.  These people once had great success. Like Amazonian goddesses building staggering endurance and mobility. Going to war over “toned”. It should read a bit over-sexualized, but I was proud of their initial effort. They started to move better and would share grand tales of running the stairs with ease. But months later, they coast through a class overall improved, but not getting better. The problem stems from eventually not challenging yourself.  This is not to take away from the good work up to this point. The body gets accustomed to the work and will change just enough to make it easier.  Consider when you started anything new.  You were probably somewhere between terrible and kind of good.  If it was enjoyable or meaningful, you improved through repetition.

When you learned to speak, you sucked. A series of odd groans, gurgles, and giggles were normal. Through effort and trial, a single word forms.  Now if you stopped there, you would only say MAMA or DADA or BABA forever. (Even if we stuck to our first words forever, we would “I am Groot” the whole thing up into other nonverbal ways to communicate.)  You kept listening and mimicking more words because it conveyed your intentions better. It meant something to be understood. Conversations opened your mind more to all the things you are now. The first steps are often the toughest, but you improved. Kept going. Advanced. Goals should ramp up as well. If you never struggled, I do mean never struggled, then what are you learning when nothing is at stake. Probably not much.

Why toned and sculpted worked for a moment.

Now at first, muscle will come easy. Most, if not all, newbies add muscle quick at the start.  It’s your body adjusting to a challenge. It is smart enough to change your body to best suit your request of it. However, this is not exponential. After a while, your returns diminish as you move to your genetic peak. (Basically, your parents had a hand in that.) If newbie muscle is easy, then getting bulky is incredibly hard. It can be a decade of hard training and it still may not get someone bulky. People can take performance enhancers and still not get bulky. There could be genetic markers that make this easy for some and almost impossible for others.  Now if there is any truth to this, ask a body builder how tough it is to put on muscle after newbie gains. Ask them the amount of volume, intensity, and drive it took to get there.  A LOT. Add in the crazy diets to maintain it and extra component usage. Basically, the deck is stacked against women to put on muscle. So bulky women must try WAY harder than some average men to look that way.

Lifting heavy hurts!

Now I think it’s delayed soreness that scares people. You do leg day and then 24-72 hours later, the stairs are evil. Everything hurts! It can be so painful; it impacts your day to day. Now you start making dad-noises getting up off the toilet and that shit ain’t cute. This discomfort stops people from getting to the next step because it’s difficult. Therefore, people stop too far from failure to convince the muscle to grow. Therefore the 3-5-pound weightlifters start to see quality change and then never change after.  They started to change but eventually got good at it and the body did not have to go any further than its owner’s effort. Your body is smart, like really smart. It knows when you are half-assing it. No one wants half an ass.

So here is the secret to toning and sculpting/adding muscle: Progressive Overload.

Over time you need to make the work tougher to convince your body it needs to change. Now I have watched people struggle to lift 5-pound weights slowly progress to easy-peasy 5-pound weights. So, I’ll ask them to test 7.5-pound weights through the same work. Sometimes they are ready and can perform without a hesitation, and other times it’s too heavy for them to finish the set. Either way, something is learned.  Adding one extra rep, adding one set, or increasing the weight all start to overload the movement and assist in building more muscle.  Back to the example, someone tests the 7.5-pound weights and gets 5 reps then switches back to 5 and finishes all 10. 

Set 1: 5lbs for 10 reps is 50lbs of total movement (volume)

Set 2: 7.5lbs for 5 reps and 5lbs for 5 reps is 62.5lbs of movement (volume)

This person would add 12.5lbs of additional volume compared to the original set. The body will start to adjust to expect 7.5 more often. Before you know it, all 10 reps are done at 7.5lbs. It’s not overnight, and if it is, it’s not forever. 

How do I add muscle better?

1)      Track your progress to track weight used and set and reps where possible.

2)      If it’s too easy, make it a little tougher.

3)      If it’s too tough, make it easier

4)      Test to where and when failure comes into play.

5)      Do it again

Toned and sculpted have just become these shit words in fitness. But people have confused this with being lean when the focus should be adding muscle. This literature, I can even call it that, does not consider eating or rest or really anything else. This was more of a helping rant to show you that you are better than even yourself. This is even a bit of an open canvas of discussion to ask fitness questions.

Good luck on the next one.