For IA’s Fitness Professionals & Enthusiasts

[Lisa Newton]

To all of Iowa Avenue’s personal trainers, fitness enthusiasts, tri-athletes, marathoners, and physical fitness aficionados:

I’ve recently started a fitness routine involving both cardio and weights, and I need some advice.

One of my goals is to get my body more toned and have read conflicting advice, so I thought I’d turn to the Iowa Avenue community for some feedback.

The question I pose to you and for the community discussion is:

“To tone your body, is it better to use more weight and fewer reps, or less weight, and more reps?”

So, Iowa Avenue fitness experts, share your thoughts!

[Susan]

Lisa, overall muscle tone comes from having a low percentage of body fat, so the nutrition part of this initiative should not be ignored.

In regards to the weight/rep issue, I think this has been addressed well by Tony Gentilcore, CSCS, CPT in a posting in FigureAthlete.com:

Simply put, there are two types of muscle tone: myogenic and neurogenic. The former refers to your muscle tone at rest; the latter refers to muscle tone that's expressed when muscular contractions occur.

Low(er) rep training increases the sensitivity of various motor units resulting in increased neurogenic tone. On the other hand, myogenic tone is correlated with the overall density of your muscles (specifically the contractile proteins myosin and actin) and is vastly improved by
This is going to come as a shock to most women, but utilizing light weights (anything above twelve reps in my book) while dieting will likely result in loss of muscle, which is the exact opposite of what you want to happen.

When dieting, the body will adapt to the caloric deficit by down-regulating many of the hormones involved with metabolism (T3, T4, leptin, etc.), as well as getting rid of metabolically active tissue (muscle.) Obviously you'd want to prevent this from happening in the first place, which is why I always recommend that women drop the 20 rep sets and start training with heavier weights.

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com

[Miguel Pineiro (Wickert)]

Hey Lisa

Great question, I have also heard different views concerning this topic. Before I state what I've learned from personal training experience and courses completed, I'll premise with this, "everyone has different specific needs." That being said, our bodies don't respond the same way; what works for me will not always work for you, and so on.

If someone is wanting to tone, yeah, using lighter weight and more reps is helpful, but if someone is going this route, realize this, using weights like this is also connected with building muscle endurance. So, if your goal is to increase size and overall strength (muscle power- how many times one lifts maximum weight), this is obviously the path you should avoid.

The point: it takes more to toning than lifting less weight for more reps. When I lost almost 30 Ibs. a few summers ago, I was able to accomplish this because of quality activity( tons of outdoor interval training, quality sleep and disciplined eating. I was intense because I had goals, I wanted to reach these goals sooner than later.

So, I hope this added something to the discussion, and hopefully helps. :) I should add, I was not lifting light during my training because of all the running and cardio training. I knew training like this could take away from my strength and size, (not always true) but my aim was and still is to be healthy and live healthy. I care more about having a strong heart than showing off big arms. Kinda long, hope my point is clear! :)

[Live Well]

"Tone" is such a funny word. "Toning muscle" is a bit of a misconception. There's no difference between "toning" and "building muscle". However, when using the terms "building muscle" people think of a body builder with huge, bulky muscles. The fact is, when you lift weights your muscle fibers are breaking down/apart. During rest they build themselves up again but a little stronger than before you lifted. That's it. (That's why you need about 48 hours of rest between your workouts or lifting days.)

With that out of the way, my opinion is you'll build muscle faster if you're using heavier weights and fewer reps. You've GOT to rest between sets though. This is a must. Rest for at least 60 seconds between your sets. You'll feel stronger the next set and you'll ensure that you have enough strength to be performing the lift properly.

[SpinDiva]

I think I'm understanding what everyone here is saying-- to build muscle increase your weight when you can easily do 12-15 reps, you want to keep it at about 8-10 reps, 2-3 sets with a minute or so break in between and, of course, a 48 hr break between workouts, as suggest by LW. I teach so if I know I will be training the same muscles two days in a row I stick with lighter weights, which is sometimes hard to do, but I don't want my muscles to just break down, I need to build up stronger.

You notice how the hundredpush ups suggest every other day and a minute break in between...that's the idea. GoodLuck.

[Lisa Newton]

Thank you all for the information. Right now, I'm keeping pretty good track of the amount of weight I'm using on each machine, but I definitely need to increase the weight and lower the reps.

For example, the last time I used the leg press, I was using 130lbs and could do 25 reps before I was tired. From your explanations, I think I need to increase the weight and only shoot for 8-10 reps, correct?

[Miguel Pineiro (Wickert)]

oh yeah, if you're able to complete 20 or more with a certain weight. It may be time to move up. The aim is to put stress or tension of that particular muscle group, without it, how is a muscle suppose to grow? When your body adjusts, (because of a strength increase) it will demand more from you.

This is the reason why I'm constantly changing my workout/exercise methods and routines.

[Chris Kolba's Fit to Live]

One of the things that many women dont realize is that they dont have the hormones to get big even if they wanted to. You need to lift mod to heavy weight to get the bone stimulating effect, the muscle effect most refer to as toning and the healthy hormonal effects. Also as you age the strength and power muscle fibers tend to atrophy the most. If you are not lifting heavier weight you will not stimulate these fibers and off set their atrophy. At a certain age if these fibers are not used they will "die" and become neurologically innervated by the endurance muscles so only do you get weaker but also slower.
Chris