Many experts and television advertisements lead you to believe that by doing specific exercises, you can target the fat on a particular part of your body for removal. This concept has come to be known as toning or sculpting. To put it simply, suggesting toning or sculpting is possible in this context is categorically false and that's what we're going to discuss in this article.
The typical exerciser is primarily interested in looking better. Granted, the ancillary benefits of improved health and performance are motivational. By and large though, the majority is most interested in or gets most excited by the idea of changing or improving the reflection in the mirror (this tends to change when we're talking about athletes).
What can I say? Our culture is driven by sex and body image.
Before speaking specifically about toning, it's important to mention whenever we're training for a specific goal, have it be performance or physique based, we need an idea of how we're going to track progress towards said goal. If we leave this part out, we might as well be shooting at a moving target while blindfolded. Rate of progress is what determines if an approach is working or not and signals us to modify the approach or continue with it.
The metrics used to measure progress will vary depending on the goal we're training for. If we're training to increase power, we might measure your vertical jump for example. If the height of your vertical jump is increasing over time, we can be confident that your power is increasing. If we're training to increase endurance, we can measure the distance covered in a timed run for example. If you're able to cover a greater distance in the same amount of time, it's a good sign that your endurance is improving.
What metrics should we measure when it comes to improving physique?
Often times people primarily rely on the scale to measure progress. Unfortunately, this isn't a very reliable method. To explain why, we need to look at what qualities we're looking to improve when it comes to your physique.
Of course, we're interested in losing fat. I haven't encountered anyone whose idea of improving physique entails getting fatter, although I do not doubt that you can find such people out there if you search hard enough. If losing fat was all that we needed to improve physique though, this would be relatively simple.
What many people tend to overlook is the importance of preserving muscle. If we want to achieve the lean, athletic look we need to reduce our level of body fatness while preserving as much muscle as possible.
Simply losing weight is fine assuming your goal is to reach a particular number on the scale. That goal, however, seems quite lacking if you ask me. If your goal is to improve your body composition (ratio of muscle to fat) and thus the reflection in the mirror, you need to emphasize the importance of losing fat while maintaining (or even gaining) muscle.
If we lose fat without maintaining/increasing muscle, there's a good chance we're going to wind up as a lighter, yet still soft version of our former selves.
This is why the scale, when it comes to measuring progress of physique improvements, is a limited tool. While we're mostly interested in losing fat while maintaining/gaining muscle, the scale is weighing fat, muscle, connective tissue, water, bowel matter, etc.
Don't get me wrong – people should certainly track weight. It's simply not something to solely rely upon. It's also important to disregard the short-term, day-to-day fluctuations in weight. We're only concerned with the longer-term trends. If the scale goes up 5 lbs in a day, there's really no cause for concern. There's a physiological limit to how quickly we can add fat and muscle so day-to-day fluctuations have more to do with water balance than anything else.
How do we measure fat loss and muscle gain beyond using a scale?
Direct measurement can be challenging. Tools exist that allow us to measure the percentage of fat on our bodies. I'm sure some of you have heard of or seen these tools; calipers, hydrostatic weighing, DEXA scans, bioelectrical impedance analysis (digital scales that measure body fat as well as weight), etc.
The reliability and accuracy of these tools can be lacking, to say the least. The devices themselves have built-in degrees of error. Once you add in the degree of error stemming from the individual performing the assessment as well, you're left with an estimation at best in most cases. I'll also mention the leaner or fatter you are, the less reliable this sort of testing is in general. Not to mention most clients simply don't have access to such tools.
Knowing this, it should be obvious that you need to be relying on an array of tools to measure progress. This typically entails taking pictures every 2-3 weeks in the same light and clothing at the same time of day. You might consider tracking your body mass index. Measurements are a great tool as well – you can take measurements of your arms, chest, abdomen, waist, hips, thighs and calves with a soft tape-measure every couple of weeks.
Adding all these metrics together provides us a good idea of what's happening in terms of losing fat and gaining muscle.
To summarize, we know that to obtain the look most are shooting for (lean, athletic) we need to emphasize losing fat as well as maintaining/building muscle. We also know how to go about tracking progress towards these goals.
Coming full circle, the preponderance of slick marketing and outright lies would lead many to believe sculpting the body of our dreams is not only possible, but also likely if we simply utilize their secret program. Here's the thing – a lot of how the models used in marketing look is determined by factors outside their training and diet. We don't have as much control over our final appearance as you might think.
What is within our power boils down to either adding muscle tissue or dropping body fat. What you look like after doing either or both of these depends entirely on your body and genetics.
For example, someone with shorter extremities isn't going to obtain that long, lean look. Their muscles aren't going to grow in length anymore than their bones, as our muscles are attached to our bones via tendons. I'm not suggesting this person couldn't get lean – I am suggesting they're probably not going to look like the long, lean models used in some of these marketing pieces.
Knowing that it comes down to either building muscle or losing fat and knowing how to optimally do both would be useful.
I'll knock fat loss off quickly for the sake of brevity. We know that fat loss requires a calorie deficit. Said deficit can come from eating less, moving more, or a combination of the both.
Another important point in the context of toning is our bodies lose fat in a genetically, predetermined pattern. If we're in a caloric deficit, fat will be lost and the pattern of where fat is lost first and where fat is lost last is unalterable. All those crunches you see people doing in the gym in an attempt to "cut" the fat on their midsections are pointless in the context of their goal.
Saying more on subject of fat loss is beyond the scope of this article.
The topic of building muscle can get very deep. In the context of this article, I'll note that aside from complete beginners and/or individuals carrying a lot of fat, gaining appreciable muscle while dieting isn't likely. The process of muscle growth is a costly process in terms of energy. By definition, if we're dieting we don't have enough energy coming in the door to preserve the tissue we currently have – our bodies are not going to make matters worse by adding slabs of a metabolically-costly tissue like muscle in the face of an energy deficit. Maintaining muscle tissue while dieting is the hope; if we do in fact add some that's just an added bonus.
Also by definition, if the goal is to get lean or more toned, we have to reduce body fat which in turn will expose the muscle we do have. This is the foundation of muscular definition. We all have rocking muscular bodies, it's just some of us have more fat covering it than others.
Misleading information has fueled the idea that a specific way of exercising will magically sculpt the specific area of the body you're targeting. With the above in mind though, we know that the muscle is either going to grow or it's not. We don't have the ability to transform fat into muscle.
The often held belief is that sculpting is accomplished by high repetition training with light weights lifted for many repetitions. High reps are associated with a burning sensation which many believe is contributing to the sculpting. Unfortunately, our physiology doesn't work in such a way.
What the high-rep, low rest workouts do is burn calories. You can think of it as another form of cardio if you'd like. It's not necessarily wrong, but it belongs more on the "fat loss" side of the equation than it does on the "muscle building/maintenance" side of the equation.
To optimally maintain or even grow some muscle while dieting, we need to provide a sufficient stimulus that increases over time. Doing nothing but light weight, high rep exercises limits the stimulus to a degree that's below the threshold required for maintenance or growth.
An ideal plan of attack would include some traditional strength training, some calorie-wasting (metabolic) stuff, as well as a balanced and controlled diet.
Traditional strength training – 3-5 sets of 5-12 reps using big exercises such as squats, deadlifts, pressing and pulling. Each rep should be done to a point just short of muscular failure assuming you're comfortable with proper form. Each major muscle group is hit 2-3 times per week with 15-60 reps per session. This is the stuff that will provide the stimulus for muscle preservation/growth. Many neglect it since it doesn't jack up your heart rate and doesn't always break a sweat. They don't understand the ins and outs of enhancing body composition though.
Metabolic training – this can be thought of merely as additional support to your diet in terms of establishing a calorie deficit. It can come in many different packages – high-rep/light- weight resistance training, moderate intensity steady state cardio, interval training, hiking, jumping rope, etc. Many rely solely on this form of training due to their misconceptions about toning. Theoretically you could leave metabolic training completely out and let diet take care of the energy deficit. The deficit will reduce your body fat and the traditional strength training will keep your muscle. That's not a suggestion, merely something to reinforce the hierarchy of importance when it comes to training. I'll note some ancillary benefits can be associated with this type of training beyond caloric expenditure but they are beyond the scope of this article.
The point is, we're confined by what's physiologically possible and this tends to drastically differ from the promises of most of the gimmicky products out there. Knowing this, our training must match what we'd like to see our bodies do in terms of change/adaptation. Secondly, even when we're familiar with what's possible in terms of physiology and how to train for said possibilities, we also must keep in mind that our genetics and bodies will dictate how we will look once we maximize fat loss and muscle gain more so than any method of training or dieting.
I Want To Look Like That Cover Model
