What the hell is toning?
I'm sick of hearing this word.
I want 'toned' legs. I want 'toned' arms. I want to lose this fat and then lift weights so I can get more 'toned'. Sound familiar?
First off, fat cannot be targeted. The common misconception is to do bicep curls for toned arms.
NO. You get toned arms by putting yourself in a caloric deficit to drop the fat all around your body - eat less calories.
Another misconception is to use small colorful rubber weights and a ton of repetitions to 'tone'. Again, no. You get toned arms by eating less calories and/or burning more calories. A valid argument that can be made against this is that higher repetitions will increase your heart rate therefore have a higher metabolic effect and burn more calories. True, calorie burning is one part - but muscle growth is the other. 30 repetitions of dumbbell girls with 5 lbs in each hand is not enough of a stimulus to produce that.
The toned look is achieved by hypertrophying the muscles and dropping your body fat percentage - surprise! How do you hypertrophy your muscles best? Use compound movements, lift heavy You're not going to turn into a bodybuilder.
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