How to Tone Your Body - Muscle Toning Exercises for Men & Women
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05 July, 2012
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It’s a common misconception that, in order to tone all of your muscles,
you need to perform high repetitions combined with little resistance and
moderate rest periods. But to truly get a firm body with flattering
muscular definition and shape, you’ll need to do more than just high
repetitions to reach this goal.
In fact, the body can only tone-up and remove the “jiggley” arms with an
increase of muscle tissue, along with a low percentage of body fat.
That said, read on to discover the best methods for toning your body.
Losing Fat/Strength Training
Strength training is a very important part of toning muscle, and it also
contributes to fat burning since it builds muscle; plus growing muscles
burn calories. Strength training is also important to drop the layer of
fat lying on top of your muscles.
Of course, if you are only practicing resistance training alone, you
won’t be seeing results. This is even truer if you’re training only
using high repetitions and low resistance, which puts very little stress
on your muscles.
Some of the most common strength training exercises like push-ups and
chin-ups are every effective at building muscle because they force you
to use your own body weight. Good strength training exercises that
involve weights are bench press, shoulder press, squats and lunges –
just to name a few.
It’s also worth mentioning that there is no special “toning” technique
for your muscles. Instead, those who want the toned look, which is
looking muscular without being too big, need to combine strength
training with some cardio to get that all-important fit look. A good
goal to shoot for with cardio is at least three, 20-minute sessions each
week.
Compound Exercises
One common misconception about toning is that you should stick to
isolation exercises which work one muscle group such as bicep curls,
lateral raises (shoulders) and hamstring curls. But the reality is that
the average person will benefit far more by doing compound exercises
because these work multiple muscle groups. As mentioned before, bench
press, squats, shoulder press and lunges are good exercises, and the
reason why is because they work several different muscles at once.
By using compound exercises, you cut down on the amount of time you’re
in the gym, and you’ll still be effectively building muscle in the
process. In short: leave the isolation exercises to the professional
bodybuilders who have all day to spend working out.
Resistance Training done Properly
Even if you are worried about becoming too bulky, you’ll still want to
challenge your muscles by using weights that make exercising
uncomfortable, but not impossible. In order to change your body’s
muscles, they need to be stressed, which requires pushing your weight
amount up when you notice that smaller weights are easy to lift. If you
are merely moving your muscles with little effort, you will not see any
results since your muscles don’t have to work harder to produce results.
Try: An example of resistance training is doing sit-ups since they use
your body’s own weight as a resistance force. If you are able to do 13
sit-ups with no problem, you may need to increase your resistance. If
this isn’t challenging enough, do the sit-ups with 5-8 pounds of weight
in your hands to add extra resistance. If you are becoming fatigued
after 10 repetitions, consider it a success because this is the amount
that produces the most results.
Exercises to Tone Back, Shoulders/Chest, Biceps/Triceps & Legs
Toning Your Back Muscles
Getting into specific exercises, begin by standing with your feet a
shoulder width’s apart while holding something in your hands such as a
weighted ball, gallon of water, 10-pound dumbbell, or anything else that
you have available. Proceed by bending your knees, tilting your pelvis a
little forward while holding your abdominals tight. Keep your back
straight and touch what you are holding to the floor; or as close to the
floor as you can; stand back up, and repeat.
These movements will definitely tone and strengthen your back, as well
as your legs. But be sure that you are always bending your knees so that
you’re not causing a back injury. Also, 2 sets of 10-12 repetitions are
good with this exercise.
Toning Your Shoulders/Chest
There are several different shoulder exercises you can do in the weight
room such as shoulder press and bench press. With the shoulder press,
begin by holding weights level to your shoulders, then raise the weights
above your head; slowly lower the weights and repeat. Shoulder presses
are nice because they not only tone your shoulders, but also the triceps
too. Do 2-3 sets of 10-12 repetitions for best results.
The bench press is another exercise that will build up your shoulders,
and work your chest at the same time. This simple exercise involves
lying on a flat bench, slowly bringing the barbell down to your chest,
then raising it back up. Please note that you should always do bench
presses with the proper equipment (found at your local gym). Also, a
good goal is to do 2-3 sets of bench pressing for 8-10 reps.
Another chest/shoulder exercise is the simple push-up, and you can do
this without even using equipment! Aim for 10 push-ups, and set out to
increase this amount by 2 push-ups every week.
Toning your Biceps/Triceps
Many people use isolation exercises to tone their biceps and triceps,
which as we discussed before, involves a lot of wasted time. So focusing
on the compound exercises, bench press will work both muscle groups
(more so the triceps), which makes this exercise perfect for your biceps
and triceps. And as mentioned in the previous section, the shoulder
press also works your triceps.
A compound exercise that you can do for your biceps is the pull-up,
which also works your lats and upper back. Most beginners find pull-ups
to be extremely hard though, so you might aid yourself with a chair in
the beginning; this involves standing on the chair while pulling
yourself off of the chair so you don’t have to support your body weight
the entire time. Assuming you have the time, you can also do some bicep
curls since this muscle group isn’t targeted in many compound exercises.
Toning your Legs
Squats are the ultimate exercise for legs since they work your
hamstrings, quads and gluts. Anybody looking for a bigger, toned butt
will definitely benefit from these! To begin with squats, you need to
rest a barbell on your shoulders behind the neck. Next, you should lower
your body using only your legs while keeping the back straight. Try to
get your legs as close to parallel as possible before coming back up.
Another exercise worth discussing is the lunge. To do this, have weights
or water jugs in your hand, and step forward with one leg; the goal is
to touch your knee on the ground before coming back up. After this, step
forward with the other leg and keep alternating. One more good exercise
for the legs are calve raises because these work both the calves and
stabilizing ankle muscles. These are simple since you just need to have
weights in your hands, raise up on your toes, then come back down before
repeating.
If you combine all of the aforementioned exercises (great for both: men
and women) with cardio, you will be moving towards a much more toned
look. Also, be sure to switch up your muscle-building exercises every
few months so that the body doesn’t adapt to these workouts. Otherwise,
you’ll be getting minimal-to-no gains after a while.
