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.

WANT MORE FREE CONTENT?

Download any of our ebooks or guides for FREE in the “free” tab at the top of the page.

The Best Nutrition and Training Protocol for Modern Life

Life is different nowadays.

Food is abundant. We can eat whatever we want, whenever we want. Do you feel like eating a whole tray of Oreos? Just take a short drive to the grocery store and bam, they’re yours. Want to get a burger with extra fries, maybe a milkshake, too? Pick from any of 2-5 locations within a 10 minute radius and go nuts. We have easy access to food, and even easier access to highly processed, hyper palatable foods.

Our days are sedentary. We simply don’t have to do as much physical work to get things done and earn a living. We have offices and computers where we can collaborate and create from one place. We have social media, skype, and phones that allow us to communicate with others at the touch of a finger. Life is just easier and lazier than it used to be.

Having easy access to highly processed foods paired up with a sedentary life is a recipe for disaster.

But it seems that life isn’t going to go in the opposite direction, so what are we to do about it?

HOW TO COMBAT MODERN LIFE

Modern life isn’t a bad thing. This is one of, if not, the best time to be alive. Although this is quite a time to be alive, it’s quite a time to be unhealthy and overweight, too. No matter what we do, we have things fighting against our ability to lose weight, keep it off, and maintain a high quality of life. We need to combat those tings, and the way we do it is through nutrition and exercise.

RESISTANCE TRAINING: THE KEY TO A FASTER METABOLISM

The human metabolism is one of the most complex things we have ever tried to understand. What we do know is that our bodies burn calories based on a few different factors.

It takes energy (calories) to digest the foods that we eat.

It takes energy (calories) to live, breathe, and perform involuntary functions that keep us alive.

It takes energy (calories) to move.

Moving is one of the best ways we can burn calories. But if you recall, movement isn’t really happening. Our lives are calling us to be more and more sedentary.

What do we do about it?

Move more and more, right?

Well, yes, and no. Creating more movement in your life is a great first step to fat loss and better health, however we can only add so much movement before we hit a wall. We can only do so many hours on the treadmill per week. We can only walk so many steps in the day. It’s not realistic for us to get to a point where we are on our feet 24/7, and exercising most hours out of the day. We have other things to do, and honestly, no one wants to be exercising for most of the hours in their day. I am in love with fitness, but the sound of living in the gym 7 days per week makes me want to die inside.

We need to do something different.

Calories are burned one of two ways. Automatically, or manually. Automatic calorie burn occurs when we just live our daily lives. Calories are burned from our existence. Manual calorie burn occurs when we create opportunity for additional calorie expenditure. Calories are burned when we exercise, do chores, walk, etc.

We can only do so much manual calorie burn, so we need to find a way to increase automatic calorie burn.

This is where resistance training comes in. Resistance training is the key to increasing your metabolism so more calories can be burned through your existence. After all, we can only do so much manual calorie burn. So why not make fat loss easier by increasing the amount of calories you burn automatically?

People interpret resistance training differently, so I need to be clear on what I’m talking about. When I talk about resistance training, I’m speaking of weight lifting and strength training. This means going to the gym with the goal and intent to get stronger by using heavier weight and usually fewer reps than you’re used to.

No, this does not mean you are adding more weight to your exercises and still performing circuits. No, this does not mean you’re doing 30 squats with five pounds more than you’re used to.

In short, here are good general rules of thumb for resistance training with the intent to speed up your metabolism:

• Follow a traditional weight lifting workout with assigned sets, reps, and rest periods

• Rest periods should be 90 seconds to 2 minutes in between sets

• Sets can range anywhere from 3-6

• 2-8 reps generally bring about the most strength increases.

The above guidelines are general recommendations. Your body will change the most after you introduce whatever it is NOT used to. For example, if you are used to training with 15-20 reps with 30 seconds in between sets, you will likely see improvement when changing to 8-10 reps with 60 seconds in between sets.

The main takeaway here is that you likely need to lift heavier, and rest a bit longer than what you’re used to.

Now, what does "heavy” mean? Lifting heavy means you are using a weight that gets you 1-2 reps short of failure once you reach your assigned rep target. Let’s break that down.

If you have to get 6 reps, you want to be using a weight that allows you to reach 6 reps, knowing you could only do one or two more reps if you had a gun to your head.

Most people don’t fully understand what their body is capable of, because they’ve never tried. Next time you’re in the gym, do your 6 reps. Then do another, then another, then another. Odds are, you’re stronger than you think, and your mindset has been limiting you. Test your strength and push your comfort zones if you want to see change.

There are a few signs that your new resistance training protocol is helping your metabolism. If you are getting progressively stronger, even if its a 5 pound difference on your lifts, you are headed in the right direction. If your appetite is increasing, you are headed in the right direction. If you are gaining lean muscle, you are headed in the right direction. Nine times out of ten, resistance training can increase the amount of calories you burn in the day, making fat loss easier and easier.

More to come on how you can assess your progress.

NUTRITION: HOW TO AID YOUR TRAINING FOR A FASTER METABOLISM

Unfortunately, you can’t just lift weights and see results. Well, you can, but the results won’t be most optimal.

In order to maximize your results and really get your metabolism cranking, you need to use the food you put in your body to enhance the effects of your resistance training program.

If you recall, we can burn calories by digesting and breaking down the food we eat. And good news, there are foods that burn more calories through digestion than others.

Protein makes the body burn the most amount of calories through digestion. Increasing your protein intake is key for building muscle (which will increase your metabolism) and increasing the amount of calories we burn through digestion.

To tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time someone was eating enough protein before they came to me for coaching. Protein is one of most underconsumed nutrients. We need to eat more of it, and you need to eat more of it, especially if you want to change your body and health.

It’s recommended you eat .6-1g of protein per pound of body weight. If you are overweight or obese, you should be lower than that. I have found for most of my clients that aren’t overweight or obese, .8g of protein per pound of body weight is the average sweet spot. However, as with other things, there is individual variance. Play around with it and see what your body responds best to.

Aside from the extra calorie burn through digestion, protein is going to be one of the main contributors to building lean muscle tissue that increases your metabolism.

Protein is a must.

Not only do you need protein for a better metabolism and a healthier body, you need to use fats, carbs and additional calories to aid your weight training.

Healthy fats are a must for proper hormone function, and carbs are extremely helpful with performance and recovery.

Other than getting proper nutrients in, it’s likely important to slowly increase the amount of food you’re eating over time.

This is what we talk about in detail in the Eat More, Get Leaner Ebook.

The metabolism can’t increase if food is being restricted. There must be a slight introduction of additional calories week over week.

When I’m helping my clients work on building their metabolisms, we slowly introduce 50-150 calories per week as they begin to get stronger and stronger in the gym. Note: we only do this if they are undereating. There are a lot of factors that play into this, but if you’ve been decreasing your food intake over time, increasing your activity, and you haven’t seen results in some time, odds are you need to increase your intake.

You should have your protein set, and you can add additional healthy fats and carbs into your 50-150 new calories each week.

HOW TO ASSESS PROGRESS

There are many ways you can track your progress throughout this process. I have found one of the best ways is through body composition tests and weekly average weights.

Using the scale isn’t enough because there are many factors that come to play. Sodium, water, and even stress can skew your weight.

Body composition tests will tell you how much lean muscle you have, and how much body fat you have.

I recommend taking one of these every two weeks at the most. Every month works will in my opinion.

As you increase your weights in the gym and very slowly increase your food intake, your goal should be to keep your average weight the same, decrease your body fat, and increase your muscle.

Let’s talk average weights. As I mentioned, taking a weight each morning and using the average to determine progress will help zero out all of the random fluctuations that come with body weight like water, salt, time of the month, stress, and more.

Take your weight first thing in the morning after using the restroom and before eating and drinking. On Sunday, average out your weigh-ins and record that as that week’s weight. As you increase your weight and very slowly increase your food, the goal should be to keep that average weight the same, or +/- two to three pounds. If this happens, it could be a sign that you’re doing exactly what you need to which is increasing muscle and decreasing body fat, thus increasing metabolism. Getting the body composition tests done every so often will help verify if this is really what is happening.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Lift weights with the intent to increase your strength each week. Push your limits

• Your program may include 2-8 reps, 90 seconds to 2 minutes of rest, and 3-6 sets

• Slowly increase your food intake week over week, given your average weight is staying the same. 50-150 calories will suffice.

• Eat .6-1g of protein per pound of body weight. If you’re overweight or obese, you can go a little lower than that.

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.

WANT MORE FREE CONTENT?

Download any of our ebooks or guides for FREE in the “free” tab at the top of the page.

How to Boost Your Metabolism

How to Boost Your Metabolism

We've all asked Google this question before: "How do I boost my metabolism?"

Unfortunately, Google has most likely given you tons and tons of different sources for answers. Some may have been similar, some may have differed. Point is, you're sick and tired of feeling unsure. 

Don't worry, we'll answer your question without hesitation or doubt in this article. But before we begin to answer the question of "can or how do I boost my metabolism?", we must first go over what the metabolism actually is. 

Metabolism

The Merriam-Webster definition of metabolism is: 

- The sum of the processes in the buildup and destruction of protoplasm; specifically the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided for vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated. 

If you're like me, you read that over five different times, took a break from the computer, did some errands, came back to the computer, read it five more times, still thought you were reading Chinese, and proceeded to follow up with this statement:

So let's simplify things. When we're talking about metabolism in health, fitness, and nutrition, we're referring to the amount of calories our body burns in a day without activity. If your metabolism is slow, it means that your body is burning minimal amounts of calories in a day. If your metabolism if fast, it means that your body is burning tons and tons of calories in a day. 

So if we want to know how to "boost our metabolism", we need to know a couple of things:

1. What determines current metabolic rate
2. How to improve the determinant of metabolic rate

What Determines Metabolic Rate?

When determining how many calories you're burning in a day, it's likely that you'll want to figure out your Basal Metabolic Rate. Your BMR will tell you how many calories you burn in a day while at rest. Essentially, BMR will tell you how many calories your body will burn while you Netflix and chill all day long. 

So how do you figure out your basal metabolic rate? Well, there are a lot of factors that play into your BMR like sex, age, weight, and height. As you can see, all of these factors change over time and there's not much we can do about it. We age, and as we age our bodies change. Unfortunately a lot of those changes are out of our control.

Although some of those changes are inevitable, there is one big factor that we can control well with physical activity. It's our lean muscle mass. 

Lean muscle mass has been shown to be one of the greatest determinants of metabolic rate (1). Someone with the same age, weight, height, but lower lean mass will have a lower Basal Metabolic Rate than someone else with the same age, weight, and height, but higher lean mass. 

Simply put, the more lean muscle tissue that your body carries, the more calories your body will burn at rest. 

But what does this mean for you along your fitness journey? How can you apply this knowledge to your life and use it to benefit your health and physique?

How to Increase Lean Muscle Mass

There are plenty of things we can do to in order to burn more calories throughout the day like walk more, do a killer circuit workout, or add 30 minutes of cardio to the end of every single weight lifting session. When it comes to thinking about burning calories, have you noticed that we almost always think of what kind of additional activity we can do to burn more calories? The last time you ate more food than you were supposed to I can almost guarantee you told yourself you'd work twice as hard in the gym to make up for it. Why do we do that? Why don't we think more about what we can do to make sure our body is burning more calories while we do nothing? After all, if we're trying to ensure that our approach to fitness is optimal, practical, and sustainable, wouldn't it be best to be burning more calories at rest, rather than working more and more and more?

So what's the solution? What can we do to make sure our body is a calorie furnace 24/7? The answer is:

Increasing lean muscle mass through resistance training.

Resistance training should be the staple of every workout program whether you're trying to build muscle, burn fat, or do both. It sends a signal to your body that it needs to be stronger, leaner, and build more mass in order to adapt to the load that's being placed upon it. Cardio however, sends a signal to your body telling it to be more efficient with the energy that it has. Therefore the more frequently you do cardio, the better your body will be at using less calories in order to fuel the activity.

Am I saying that you have to or should cut out cardio completely? Of course not. But I do believe that if you're trying to lose fat, avoid a plateau, and avoid getting burnt out, cardio should be a supplement to your resistance training.

If you're at a plateau and you're doing more and more cardio, stop. Lift weights. Apply the same intensity in your cardio sessions to your weight lifting sessions and I'm willing to bet that your body will begin to build a faster metabolism. 

So how do you boost your metabolism? 

Increase your lean muscle mass by lifting weights! 

Short, sweet, and to the point. 

References

(1) Speakman, J R, and C Selman. “Physical Activity and Resting Metabolic Rate.” The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Aug. 2003
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14692598.

Thanks for reading!

Be sure to follow Poehlmann Fitness and Subscribe to the YouTube channel! Why? Because you'll get notified when awesome videos get uploaded for you to watch. And that's never been a bad thing. 

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball 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. 

Adam is an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist. His years of experience in fat loss, muscle hypertrophy, and sports performance training have helped people improve in all walks of life. If you're interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.