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How many times have you heard a person in a fitness center mention that its primary objective was to simply tone? No muscle gain, just toning. But what is toning? To have curves? To have harder muscles? First, let’s define what muscular tone is: In physiology, medicine, and anatomy, muscle tone (residual muscle tension or tonus) is the continuous and passive partial contraction of the muscles against gravity. It is a state which fluctuates not according to the muscle, but, according to the work which must be achieved by the muscle. The greater the tension generated by the muscle, the greater the tone. For example, an elbow flexion will generate a certain tension in the biceps brachii whereas the same flexion with a load of 10kg will generate a greater tension and tone. Muscle toning is therefore not a trainable physiological quality, but rather a neurophysiological response. Then, why so many people, more particularly women, wish to increase their muscular tone? Because that is what they were told they needed. For these people, tone means having an athletic body without too much muscle development as seen in bodybuilders.

 Yet, when these clients ask for toning, what they seek without knowing is precisely to increase their muscle mass. For many, increasing muscle mass is synonymous with bodybuilders in tight “speedo" or women with the biceps circumference the size of a men’s thigh. Yes, this muscle hypertrophy, but thrust at one extreme. To make a analogy with cardiovascular training, it is as if a person refused to use the treadmill by fear of running a marathon in 2 h 15. To achieve this, there must be hours of specific training just like there is for bodybuilders and muscular development. As soon as we are talking about hypertrophy or gain in muscle mass, we are not necessarily talking about bodybuilding.

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