How to Tone Your Muscles

Tone is a made-up word.

Yes, that’s correct. It’s a word the was created out of thin air to attract the attention of females that were trying to shape a leaner, tighter body.

There is not merit to the word, “tone”. But that doesn’t mean the idea behind it is worthless.

Creating a lean, tight, and sexy physique is something that can definitely be done, but it doesn’t happen through a “toning” process in our body.

Here is a four-step guideline on how to create that “toned” body you’ve always wanted.

STEP 1: BUILD YOUR STRENGTH

Strength is the foundation of it all. In order to build the muscle that you want to define and sculpt, you need to have a solid foundation of strength.

This is often the most neglected element of a training program, especially in women looking to build a tighter body. There is too much focus on feeling the burn and sweating, and not enough focus on building strength.

In order to become stronger, we need to send a strength signal to the body. We do this through our training program. The amount of weight we lift, reps and sets we complete, and rest taken in between sets tells our body to adapt and progress in different ways. Strength gains primarily come from our central nervous system (CNS). When we get stronger, our central nervous system commands more muscle fibers to do more work. The CNS is your amplifier to your muscles as an amplifier is to its speakers. The better the amplifier is, the better the speakers will operate. We absolutely need a strong signal from the CNS to command our muscles to lift more weight.

In order to build strength in the gym, you should focus on compound, bang for your buck movements. Compound movements are movements that involve more than one joint such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, presses, rows, and pull-ups.

While performing those movements, your intention should be on on moving as much weight as possible in lower rep ranges with good form. A traditional strength phase will include anywhere between 2-8 reps, 2-6 sets, and 90 second to 3 minute rest between sets.

As a general recommendation, perform 5 sets of 4-6 reps with 2 minutes rest in between sets, focus on maximum weight while maintaining good form.

Once you’ve established a good foundation of strength, it’s time to focus on building some muscle.

STEP 2: BUILD MUSCLE

I can’t stress enough how important this step is.

You simply cannot have a tight, defined, well-sculpted body if you do not have any muscle to show. Muscle is what we shape, build, and sculpt in order to allow our body to look a certain way. If you don’t have muscle, you won’t have anything to show off come beach time.

Muscle is what gives you the tight and defined look, so you absolutely need to prioritize it.

Building muscle has a little bit of a different focus than sheer strength does. Can you build muscle while focusing on strength? Absolutely. But once you’ve transitioned out of your strength phase, building lean muscle is top priority, so your intent in the gym needs to reflect that.

While lifting in the gym, your focus should be on the squeeze and contraction of your muscles. This is called mind-muscle connection. During each rep, your focus is on the squeeze of the muscle, feeling it work hard during each and every rep.

Mind-muscle connection can be a hard thing to establish, but describing it to my clients this way has seemed to help the most:

Don’t lift the weight to work your muscles, flex your muscles to move the weight.

Muscle building can happen in many different training protocols, but a general recommendation on how to structure your program for muscle building will give you a good start.

Aim for 8-12 reps, 3-4 sets, and 45-90 seconds rest in between sets.

After you’ve established strength, and increased your lean muscle, it’s time to shed some body fat and show off what you’ve worked so hard for.

STEP 3: LOSE BODY FAT

You need to have lower body fat percentages in order to create a lean and tight look. It is an absolute must.

Does that mean you have to be counting every calorie, every gram of carbs, and every milligram of sodium in order to get the look you’re striving for? Absolutely not, but it will take some commitment to change.

In order to lose body fat, we need have two things happening:

1. We need to be in a calorie deficit

2. We need to make sure our body is losing fat, and not muscle.

In order to lose weight, more calories need to be burned than taken in. We simply need to burn more calories than we eat and drink. That sounds super easy on the surface, but it’s much easier said than done.

If we take the above fact at face value, all we’d need to do is move more and eat less. The problem is, it’s not that simple. Eating less and moving more will help us lose weight, but it’s extremely important that we lose the right weight, which is body fat.

First you need to establish your deficit. Hopefully by now, you’ve figured out the amount of calories you need in order to maintain your current weight. If not, I recommend tracking your food intake as is, and see how that changes your average weight. Weigh yourself every morning, and use the average of those seven weigh-ins to make an assessment. If your average weight climbs after a few weeks, you’re likely in a calorie surplus. If your average weight stays, you’re likely at maintenance calories. If your average weight drops down, you’ve likely found your calorie deficit. If you haven’t found your deficit yet, you can use your maintenance and reduce from there. I recommend reducing 200-500 calories per day. So, if your maintenance is 1800 per day, you can drop down to 1500 per day and see how that affects your body.

I would take caution and remember that this is a tortoise’s race. Use the littlest adjustment to bring about the most amount of change.

Once you’ve established a calorie number that is less than you’ll be burning in the day, there are some other items you should address before putting things into action. These items have helped my clients lose body fat, maintain or even build muscle, and keep their metabolism roaring:

1. Keep protein high. Protein is a nutrient that our body needs to maintain and build muscle. Even if you are reducing calories, it’s important you keep your protein high in order to keep all the muscle you’ve worked so hard for. For relatively lean individuals, .8-1g of protein per pound of body weight works well. For those that are overweight or obese, .5-.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight is plenty. If you are obese, stay on that lower end.

2. Continue to lift weights. This is NOT the time to go balls to the wall with cardio to burn max calories. That will derail your long term progress. This is where you get to utilize all the time you spent building muscle and increasing your metabolism. Manipulate your weight lifting program to allow you to see the most amount of change with the least amount of work.

3. Use cardio as a last resort, short-term tool.

Now for step 4.

STEP 4. USE CARDIO AS A LAST-MINUTE BOOST

Cardio is one of the best things for fat loss only when it is used properly. And I mean it.

Cardio can either make you or break you.

Using cardio incorrectly can lead to a slower metabolism, and a much harder time losing body fat. But what does “incorrect” mean? In terms of fat loss, using cardio incorrectly means that you are using cardio as your primary driver for calorie burn. You are doing cardio chronically, every day, in the hopes to burn more and more calories.

Our bodies were beautifully designed to adapt to the environment we put them in. When we do tons and tons of cardio, we begin to adapt by burning fewer and fewer calories. When we do tons and tons of weight lifting and strength-building, we begin to adapt by burning more and more calories at rest. So it’s important we use the metabolism-boosting effects of weights to get the most results, and use cardio sparingly when our body is least adapted in order to burn the most amount of calories.

This is where we talk about doing cardio properly.

“Properly” in this context means that we are using cardio for a fat-loss boost as we approach the deadline of our goal. Remember, the less your body is used to cardio, the more effective the cardio will be for your fat loss. Use your weight training and nutrition to squeeze out the most amount of fat loss possible before introducing cardio.

When introducing cardio, I recommend implementing HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training.

HIIT has been shown to be effective for calorie burn during and even after the session.

I recommend 12-20 minutes of HIIT, starting on the low end and working your way up. Alternate between intervals of high heart rate, and low heart rate. Pick one of your favorite cardio movements, and implement the following format.

• 30 seconds as hard as you can go

• 1 minute at a moderate pace

• Repeat until total time (12-20 minutes) is reached

If your body is only used to weight lifting at this point, you should see benefit from your HIIT workouts.

Again, start low, and build up. Get the most you can out of the least amount of work, and only add more once you’ve maximized your results at your current cardio “dosage”.

THE TAKEAWAYS

This is the tortoise’s race. Slow and steady wins the race. If you want to create a lean, tight, “toned” look, focus on the following steps.

• Step 1: Build your strength. Lift weights with the intention to get as strong as you can. 4-6 reps is a good range.

• Step 2: Build muscle. Once you’ve increased strength, focus on the connection and pump of your muscles, squeezing hard each rep, with the intent to build muscle. 8-12 reps should allow you to build some muscle.

• Step 3: Burn Fat: Manipulate your nutrition and continue lifting weights to burn body fat while keeping and maybe even building some muscle.

• Step 3: As your approach your goal deadline, use HIIT cardio as needed. The body adapts to cardio within 2-3 weeks, so don’t abuse it. Use it as a last-minute boost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life.

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3 Signs You're Sabotaging Your Training

Have you noticed that we idolize nutrition?

We think it's the end all be all. We pretend that it's the only thing that matters when it comes to reaching all of our health and fitness goals. Don't get me wrong, nutrition is extremely important, but because we've put nutrition on such a high pedestal, we've completely forgotten about the importance of proper training.

Don't believe me?

How many times have you heard this: Abs are made in the kitchen.

Fun fact, they're not made in the kitchen. Abs are made in the gym, but because we've assumed a great physique is only made in the kitchen, we've made training an afterthought that is unworthy of our undivided attention.

Let's fix that.

In this article, I've outlined and discussed in detail THREE signs that you're sabotaging your goals, by underestimating the importance of your training.

Let's do this.

SIGN #1: YOU'RE MOVING WEIGHTS, BUT NOT THE RIGHT WAY

Whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building, resistance training should ALWAYS be a staple in your workouts. In fact, it is the thing that you should give all of your time and attention to. Forget the rowers, bikes, stairmasters, and treadmills. You need to put all of your focus on your weight training.

Unfortunately, there are some that do prioritize resistance training, but they don't do it properly.

The reason we do resistance training is because it sends a signal to our body that we need to build strength and muscle. However, that signal only comes when a certain stimulus is applied to the body. Just because you have weights in your hand doesn't mean you're performing resistance training.

Change happens when your body is challenged and instructed to build muscle and gain strength to adapt to the stimulus it's given. The signal that your body gets from using 10 pounds for 10 reps is NOT the same as the signal that your body gets from using 50 pounds for 10 reps. We all tend to get far too focused on the amount of reps we're doing, and we complete forget that the reason we're in the gym is to challenge the abilities of our body (especially our strength). The reason we lift is to FORCE our body to change and grow. We must put the body in a situation where it has no choice but to grow, adapt, and change.

When you're training, do you focus on completing the amount of reps assigned, or do you focus on pushing your body's strength? Turns out, you can push your body's strength by using a certain amount weight for a certain amount of reps as long as the weight is challenging enough.

Repetitions are not magic numbers. It's all about the tension and stress we apply in order to tell our body to change and improve. We simply use repetitions as a tool to measure the time we apply tension to our muscles.

When you're training in the gym, think about how hard you're working. Are you pushing your tank a couple reps shy of empty, or are you just coasting with light weights just to say you did 10 reps?

Use this scale to help you.

SIGN #2: YOUR INTENTION IS POO POO

This ties in with sign number one.

I overheard a conversation the other day between a trainer and a potential client. They just got done going through a free workout, and the trainer was talking to the member about a game plan to help them get to their goals. After the trainer walked them through their ideas, the member said something that I thought was very interesting.

"That sounds nice and all, but what workout can I do to get in, get the workout over with, and get out as fast as possible?"

Thankfully, the trainer to some extra time to explain exactly why that would not be beneficial for them.

You see, those that don't see change in their health and fitness usually think in one of two ways. The first way is the "Get In and Get Out" mindset.

This person squeezes their workout in to their schedule, rather than blocking time out of their schedule to lift some weights. The two are completely different. This person does a workout just to check it off the list. It doesn't matter what weights they used, how long they rested, how good their form was, all that matters is that they got it done and could say "check" as they looked at their to-do list. This person treats training as a chore. As a result, this person does half-assed workouts and doesn't see consistent change over a long period of time.

The second way is the "Sweaty and Sore" mindset.

This person treats their workout as an absolute punishment. The workout doesn't count if they didn't drench their shirt in sweat. The workout doesn't count and wasn't good enough if they're not painfully sore the next day. This person tries to run their body completely into the ground every time they set foot in the gym.

The problem with both of these examples is that the reason for resistance training isn't behind their intention when they train.

After being in the fitness industry for years, I can tell you one thing is consistent and true. The people that easily make positive changes to their health and body time and time again are those that understand why they're going to the gym, and that "why" is behind their intention. They train to improve one thing that day, and then build from there. They train to test their body's limits in a safe and mechanically sound manner. They take proper rest between sets. They challenge themselves to get out of their comfort zone in some way each and every day. They seek to improve just a bit in every single workout. As they do those things, they learn to enjoy the process.

Those that succeed don't treat their workout as an opportunity to sweat and get sore. They don't treat it as something that needs to get checked off the list. Rather, they treat their workout as an important piece of the puzzle that will help them build and shape their dream body.

When you're in the gym doing your workout, are you thinking about how much time you have left? Are you thinking about how fast you can get to the next exercise? Or, are you thinking about one set, the set that is just ahead of you, and what you can do to improve in that one set?

Be intentional.

SIGN #3 YOUR WARM-UP IS ALSO POO POO

Sign number three also ties in with sign number two. I'm just over here tying everything together. Crazy how things workout sometimes.

Yes, warming up is a part of your intention. Ask yourself what warming up means to you. I bet that if you compare your answer to your goals, it seems silly to be warming up that way. I'm guessing most of your goals are either burn fat, build muscle, or both, and you probably said the reason you warm up is to get your heart rate up and sweat a bit before you train.

Well, that makes no sense, right?

Remember how I said that your priority should always be resistance training, no matter what your goal is? Well, maybe that means your warm up should be something that helps you perform your weight training a bit better. There are some different things that can allow you to do that, but I'll go through the two most important in my opinion.

The first is activation. Next time you're in the gym, watch someone do a row of some sort. My guess is that their shoulder blades are rolled forward and their shoulder blades are not retracting/squeezing together. I bet their arms are doing 99% of the work. Take a look next time and make observations.

Situations like that are unfortunate, because it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. The purpose of a row is to work your upper and mid back muscles. This can't be done if your shoulder blades are rolled forward and not retracting. So, taking time before your workout to activate the muscles back there and make sure they're working will make a MASSIVE difference in your workouts and results.

Not only are most people's backs inactive, but so are their glutes. This happens from countless hours in a desk day after day. Those muscles basically go to sleep and are never used properly during a workout. This is why most people feel squats in their quads, and nothing in their glutes. For those people in this situation, doing a few sets of glute bridges and squeezing for a couple seconds at the top will allow them to activate and use the proper muscles (their sweet cheeks) during a movement, leading to more effective workouts and greater results.

The next important step to better workouts is mobility. The more mobility and stability you have in a movement, the more room there is to improve. I'll be the example for this one.

In college, our strength coach would have me squat a broomsitck every single day to practice, because I simply couldn't squat. My hips were stiff, and so were my ankles. Because of this, getting my thighs to parallel seemed harder than trying to throw a fastball 100 miles per hour. Thankfully, my coach gave me a mobility routine to do before each lifting session with the team. I'd come 15 minutes early each day, and work on my hips and ankles. Id improve my range of motion and stability in a squat by hooking a band to an anchor, resting the band around my waist, and sitting in a low squat. While sitting in the low squat, i'd do some isometric tension holds to increase stability and control in that new range of motion. I'd also do a combat stretch, working on improving the range of motion in my ankle. I'd practice bringing my knee forward without letting my heel leave the ground. Once I reached my max, i'd pull my toes up as hard as I could to create stability and control in that new range of motion. I'd do this over and over and over before every single session. Over time, my squats improved a ton, and I was able to create more strength in a greater range of motion. Because of that, my squat strength has continually progressed, and my legs have grown during each phase of my programming.

Are you able to perform a movement in a full range of motion with complete stability and control? If not, take the time to work on your mobility before and after your training session.

Get your body ready to perform the best it can during your workout.

THE TAKEAWAYS

#1: Push yourself with your weights. Use the RPE scale to gauge whether or not you're pushing your body to change for the better.

#2: Be intentional. Get your mind right. Go to the gym with a plan to make one small improvement, and build from there. Sweaty and sore is not the goal, and working out is not a chore. It is a process that is meant to be enjoyed.

#3. Activate. Don't just warm up, but prepare your body to perform the best it possibly can depending on what kind of workout you have ahead of you.

BONUS: Still not quite sure what you can be doing to make your workouts better? Let's talk. I'm here to help however I can.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

5 Tips for Easier Fat Loss

Do a Google search for "how to lose fat." I dare you.

You will find thousands upon thousands of different sources, with tons of different answers. If you took the time to compare and contrast all of those different answers, you'd find tons of similarities, and tons of differences. The problem is...

Since you have other important things to do, I'd like to make your life a bit easier. Below is a list of 5 things you should be doing to lose fat easier. If you turn these items into habits, the fat will stay off easier, too.

LIFT WEIGHTS

Lifting weights is going to be one of the best things you can do for your health and fitness no matter what your goal is. I don't care if your goal is fat loss, muscle building, or getting out of your car without groaning. You should be lifting weights.

When we introduce something to our body, it sends a signal telling our body to adapt. If you perform endurance running, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt by improving its energy efficiency (your metabolism will slow down). If you perform mobility and stretching consistently, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt my improving the muscles' ability to lengthen and create stability in those lengthened positions. The same concept applies for resistance training. When you lift weights, you send a signal to your body telling it to gain strength and build muscle. As a result, you will become stronger, and carry more lean tissue. This is beneficial for fat loss for one major reason. Resistance training promotes a faster metabolism, as well as muscle building. Muscle takes a lot of energy to maintain, so your metabolism will increase as a result of your increased muscle mass as well. In short, you'll build a fast metabolism, and as you know, fat loss is much easier with a faster metabolism.

Before I move on, I want to clarify something. When I say building muscle, I specifically mean adding ANY amount of lean muscle to your body. This applies for women wanting to increase tone and definition, as well as men wanting to get jacked. Any sort of increase in lean tissue (even if it's a small increase) will lead to a faster metabolism. You'll also look great, too. So that's nice.

TRACK YOUR FOOD

Tracking your food intake is something I believe EVERYONE should do. It is the best way you can get an extremely good idea of how food affects your internal health as well as fat loss. Tracking gives you an opportunity to know what and how much you're currently intaking, and also allows you to see what tweaks you need to make in order to lose more fat. We've been trained to mindlessly eat since we were kids. You'll be astonished by what you discover when you finally decide to keep a log of your food.

Here's the thing. Fat loss and finances are similar in many ways. If you want to know how to save money, you're going to want to track your spending and create a budget in order to save more money. Similarly, if you want to lose fat, you're going to want to track your eating and create a "budget" in order to burn more energy than you consume in a day. In both scenarios, playing the guessing game is dangerous and will most likely put you in a bigger hole than you're in now. Take responsibility, get determined, and take note of what you do so you can make accurate and beneficial changes.

BOOST YOUR METABOLISM

I briefly discussed this before, but I'll go over it in more detail.

In the context of modern life, speeding up your metabolism is one of the best things you can do. It will make getting lean and staying lean much easier. Why? For starters, we are more sedentary than ever. In addition, food is more readily available than ever before. Simply put, we are moving less and eating more. So, having a faster metabolism will make it easier for you to burn more calories without sacrificing your lifestyle.

Two things you can do to boost your metabolism include eating more food and performing resistance training. If you do things the right way, you'll see your body's ability to burn through calories increase like crazy. While performing your resistance training program, slowly add volume to your workouts once your body begins to adapt. Increases in volume have been proven to enhance strength and muscle mass, which are going to help your metabolism. You can add volume to your training by adding weight, sets, reps, or a combination of the three. While tracking your nutrition, make sure you're eating enough protein, carbs, and fat for your desired outcome. The goal is to maintain your current weight week after week as you eat more food and add volume to your training.

STAY CONSISTENT

This one is simple. If you're consistent, you'll see positive change. If you're inconsistent, you won't. It is better to be 90% consistent consistently than to be 100% consistent inconsistently. Don't stress too much about the BEST workout ever. Don't stress too much about the BEST nutrition protocol ever. Instead, focus on eating well 80% of the time, and getting all your workouts in. Even if that's too much, find ONE simple change in your training and ONE simple change in your nutrition that you can be consistent with. Once those changes have turned into habits, build from there.

HAVE YOUR EYES SET ON THE LONG TERM

Can you lose 20 pounds in two weeks? Yup. But you don't want to go down that road. Short-term, get fit quick routes will lead you to hole that will take years and years to dig yourself out of. If you want to build a lean body and be able to easily maintain it down the road, have your eyes set on the long term. If you want that kind of change, you need to accept the fact that you are going to make a lifestyle change. Lifestyle changes are no joke, and they take time. Once you have your long term goal and you've accepted the fact that you're making a lifestyle change, break things down a bit. Make daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Also, it may be a good idea to create behavior-based short-term goals for your outcome-based goals. Let's say your outcome-based goal is losing 50 pounds of body fat in a healthy way over the course of the next 2 years. Your behavior-based goals can be things like getting all your workouts in, meeting your macronutrient goals each day, and getting your body composition tested every month. Whatever you choose to do, create some behavior change. Outcome-based goals are achieved far more often when there are detailed behavior-based goals to go along with them.

THE TAKEAWAY

If you want to lose fat and keep it off, make sure you implement these five things into your life.

1. Lift weights

2. Track your food

3. Boost your metabolism

4. Stay consistent

5. Have your eyes set on the long term

If you do these things (even on a small scale) and slowly build, you will see great change in your health and fitness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.