How to Gain Tone & Muscle Definition
Like putting the finishing touches on a statue, improving your muscle definition and tone is the final step in showing off your finely chiseled physique. Typically attempted after you have bulked up your muscles to the desired size, gaining muscle definition means you will have to maintain the balance between endurance and strength training. Mixed with your efforts at maintaining a healthy and balanced diet, attaining a toned body will help make you proud of time spent exercising.
Instructions
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Lower your caloric intake. A simple way to find out how many calories you need daily to maintain your current weight is to multiply your weight in pounds by 15. Reducing this amount by 200 or more calories daily will determine the rate at which you lose weight. Losing fat or converting your current weight to a more muscular physique will pronounce the look of your muscles. Reduce the amounts of simple carbohydrates such as sugar and fats that you consume before touching complex carbs and protein in your diet.
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Burn the layers of fat between your epidermis and muscles. Shredding the fat that is blanketing your muscles will bring your muscles closer to your skin which has the effect of toning and defining your body. Aerobic exercise that is challenging to you will serve to do this at an accelerated rate. While you will lose some fat, you will also lose muscle during performing aerobic exercise. You can prevent this by incorporating muscularly challenging elements into your aerobic exercise such as adding light weights. You can also avoid muscle loss by performing exercises like rowing other resistance training exercises that have aerobic (constant moving elements). Perform this at least 2 times a week but no more than 4 times as this can begin to reduce your muscle mass.
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Avoid overloading your muscles during weightlifting. You can easily burnout your body when trying to get definition if you are trying to perform the same amount of repetitions with normal weight during your workouts. This can be avoided by lowering the amount of repetitions you do during the toning phase of your body's conditioning. Using the same weight yet lowering the amount of repetitions you perform will help your body adjust to the lower amounts of nutrition you are consuming while maintaining muscle mass. Although you will lose a small amount of muscle mass during toning, it will significantly less than the amount of fat you are losing. Remember that no matter how hard you try you will not be able to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.
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Utilize compound exercises at the gym. Compound or multi-joint exercises, work more than on specific muscle group in the body. These exercises will allow you to maximize the effort you put in during a workout while avoiding burnout due to specifically focused exercises. The most common compound exercises you should use when toning are squats, pull-ups, bench press, and rows.
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Give a convincing effort each time you exercise. One important key when it comes to approaching exercise strategy is not necessarily what you do, but how you do it. Make sure that when you want to define your muscles that you are putting your full effort into workouts. This means performing high intensity exercises that will push you to the limit each time without going overboard.
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Tips & Warnings
Always ensure that you get adequate rest when working out as your body will need this time to repair and rebuild.
Consult with your doctor before starting any new diet or exercise program.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit muscle body 6 image by chrisharvey from Fotolia.com
