What is muscle tone?
We often hear “I want to get toned.”
But, what is “tone”? And how do we become more toned?
Tone is simply: The presence of muscle in the absence of fat. There are no other variables.
When we say, “that person has toned arms,” we are simply observing, “that person doesn’t have very much fat and therefore, I can see their muscle.”
How do we lose fat?
Eat less food (or take a GLP-1 drug).
How do we add muscle?
Resistance train with a high level of intensity.
Progressively overload by doing more reps or adding more weight over time.
Allow for adequate rest between workouts.
Consume sufficient protein.
There is no type of exercise or workout that preferentially tones our muscles or bodies. We simply need to:
Lose fat and
Add muscle
(Simple to understand, but still very challenging to execute).
Further reading: 2 years ago, Discover Strength and our academic colleagues published the largest study ever conducted comparing heavy vs. light weights in achieving “tone.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02701367.2022.2097625
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