Bulk vs Tone vs Cut vs Strength

[Conjurus]

Hello all,

I've got a friend who is willing to start a workout program with me. This is great because I was trying to workout by myself and couldnt find motivation.

Anyway I've worked out in the past and I had 2 routines. A bulk workout and a tone workout. I posted a while back on this and found out I had misunderstood some concepts. Tone is different than cut. And I guess getting bigger isnt always getting stronger.

Here's me thing, I want to get bigger, stronger, and more defined. I want to use free weights and swim. I have a swimming workout routine and the plan is to have 3 weight workouts and a swim workout per week. Now what'd I'd like to do is have 1 strength workout, 1 bulk workout, and one cut workout.

How do I train for these different things? For instance, take the bicep curl. How many reps and with what weight would I use to strength train, how many for bulk and how many for tone?

Thanks!

 

[vaecicla]

There was a topic here called "curls are for girls" which you should look up; meaning your staple exercises should not consist of curls (isolation) but multijoint exercises.

 

[Big_Idiot]

The general idea,

few reps, heavy weight = strength
higher reps, moderate weight = size/endurance

BTW, if your wanting strength, the bicep curl isnt your ideal lift. Big compound lifts are ideal.

 

[stroutman81]

Cut and tone are different?

Look....

You can't build your ideal physique with one particular method. It takes years of refinement. Read that again... years.

I'm currently at 185-190 lbs and relatively lean. To get to this point, I've been though many cycles of cutting fat and building muscle.

Being toned is a function of losing as much body fat as you can while maintaining as much muscle as you can. The general idea is to build up using appropriate loading, volume and calories. During this time, you invariably will pile on a bit of fat... there's no way around that.

Once satisfied or ready, which will be a very individual point, tweak your methods (training and diet) to shed some the fat and maintain the muscle.

General things to consider are obviously calories. To pack on muscle and get significantly stronger (assuming you've got some training under your belt) takes sufficient calories. Hypertrophy is a very intense process, energetically speaking.

To add, while you're eating for size/strength, you can also afford more volume in your training. Increased calories = increased recovery ability.

While dieting, it's time to add in metabolic work if you weren't doing any while bulking. It's time to be more economical in your training, sticking primarily with the big exercises with reduced volume since your recovery ability will be diminished.

This list goes on and on.

I'm simply trying to portray to you that this is a process and it's a matter of jumping in and applying the fundamentals. Touch and feel your way toward your goals and modify the approach accordingly.

 

[Conjurus]

The general idea,

few reps, heavy weight = strength
higher reps, moderate weight = size/endurance

BTW, if your wanting strength, the bicep curl isnt your ideal lift. Big compound lifts are ideal.

So can I do anything with free weights to increase strength?

I'd like to use nothing but free weights.

Also, you said few reps heavy weight= strength, higher reps, moderate weight= size/endurance. What = cut?

 

[Marbleshade]

So can I do anything with free weights to increase strength?

I'd like to use nothing but free weights.

I don't see why you couldn't just use free weights if you wanted to.

Also, you said few reps heavy weight= strength, higher reps, moderate weight= size/endurance. What = cut?

When people refer to tone or cut, they're usually talking about the same thing: a combination of low body fat and significant muscle hypertrophy, making the muscle easily visible. If what you want is a "cut" look, then the "moderate weight=size/endurance" is what you'd go for. Typically 2-4 sets of 6-8 reps I think is what is suggested.

 

[Karky]

People should just use the verb "cut" instead of the word "tone", there is no need to have two words for the same thing (except for when writing poetry, but that's not what we are trying to do here), as it just causes confusion.

I'm willing to bet the phrase "to tone muscles" got started when people wanted their muscles to look more flexed/contracted at rest.there was a time when this was everything people talked about, they didn't want bigger muscles, but they wanted them to look more contracted at rest. Now some smart guy who had read a bit of physiology probably told them about muscle tonus, which is how contracted a muscle is at rest. (The neurosystem is constantly keeping a little tension in your muscles, this is unconsciously).
When and how people came to the conclusion that this could be increased through training, I don't know. When and how people came to the conclusion that this would best be improved by doing high rep sets, I don't know. I've never seen anything suggesting that you can improve muscle tonus by training or by doing high reps.

However, that doesn't mean it is not out there, I wouldn't be surprised if you could increase muscle tonus by resistance training, but I doubt that would be by high reps, simply because it is low reps that require the most "work" from the CNS in recruiting muscle fibers.
This is because the fast twitch motor units that you must recruit in order to achieve near maximum contractions are harder for the CNS to recruit. most people can't recruit all of them no matter how hard they try, but most people can recruit pretty much all of their slow twitch motor units, which will predominantely be used in high rep activity. There is also higher rate coding at higher levels of contraction. Rate coding is the rate at which the motor neurons send signals (action potentials) to the muscle fibers it activates.


To clarify so people don't think I'm saying you can isolate fast muscle fibers. slow MUs will be activated first in the contraction, and if they are unable to produce enough force the fast MUs will also kick in.

That got all long and stuff, but yeah..

 

[Kraken]

you should be doing pull ups and / or chin ups instead of curls. Its a much more beneficial exercise for your biceps and other key muscle groups.

 

[Karky]

or you could just do curls in addition to the upper body pulling that usually works

 

[Kraken]

or you could just do curls in addition to the upper body pulling that usually works

I do both but if you can't do at least 10 pull ups then you I feel you're wasting your time doing arm curls.

 

[stroutman81]

People should just use the verb "cut" instead of the word "tone", there is no need to have two words for the same thing (except for when writing poetry, but that's not what we are trying to do here), as it just causes confusion.

Unforuntately we don't get to pick and choose the vocabulary that makes it into mainstream fitness circles. Cut and tone is what you'll be bopped over the head with each time you watch a commercial or flip a magazine add.

I agree with you. Actually, if I had it my way there would be two phases:

1. Fat loss phase
2. Muscle buiding phase

But that's not trendy.

I'm willing to bet the phrase "to tone muscles" got started when people wanted their muscles to look more flexed/contracted at rest.there was a time when this was everything people talked about, they didn't want bigger muscles, but they wanted them to look more contracted at rest. Now some smart guy who had read a bit of physiology probably told them about muscle tonus, which is how contracted a muscle is at rest. (The neurosystem is constantly keeping a little tension in your muscles, this is unconsciously).
When and how people came to the conclusion that this could be increased through training, I don't know. When and how people came to the conclusion that this would best be improved by doing high rep sets, I don't know. I've never seen anything suggesting that you can improve muscle tonus by training or by doing high reps.

I don't know if I'd make that same bet. I think the word toned as used in the mainstream has nothing to do with muscle tonus and everything to do with the false conception that you can 'shape' your body.

Toning comes from the cash cow that our current media is relative to physique transformation and fat loss.

And if it were to stem from something 'sciency' I'd be willing to bet it would come from the terms myogenic and neurogenic tone.

However, that doesn't mean it is not out there, I wouldn't be surprised if you could increase muscle tonus by resistance training, but I doubt that would be by high reps, simply because it is low reps that require the most "work" from the CNS in recruiting muscle fibers.

Agreed.

It's not all about the CNS and muscle tonus though. Heavy weight training promotes myofibrillar hypertrophy whicn in turn, increases your muscle density or tone at rest (myogenic).

Doesn't mean higher reps are bad, a combo is best IMO once you factor in the theoretical ability to train for sacroplasmic vs. myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Neurogenic tone has to do with muscle tone under movement.

This is because the fast twitch motor units that you must recruit in order to achieve near maximum contractions are harder for the CNS to recruit. most people can't recruit all of them no matter how hard they try, but most people can recruit pretty much all of their slow twitch motor units, which will predominantely be used in high rep activity. There is also higher rate coding at higher levels of contraction. Rate coding is the rate at which the motor neurons send signals (action potentials) to the muscle fibers it activates.

Have you done research on this beyond a textbook? I ask only b/c I've seen research suggesting full recruitment around 80-85% MVIC. I haven't looked at the data in a while but I'm interested to hear where you're pulling this from.

Thanks.

 

[Excder]

Damn, that was a hella post!:costumed:

Any more questions guys???? Thats what i thought lol

 

[Karky]

Unforuntately we don't get to pick and choose the vocabulary that makes it into mainstream fitness circles. Cut and tone is what you'll be bopped over the head with each time you watch a commercial or flip a magazine add.

I agree with you. Actually, if I had it my way there would be two phases:

1. Fat loss phase
2. Muscle buiding phase

But that's not trendy.



I don't know if I'd make that same bet. I think the word toned as used in the mainstream has nothing to do with muscle tonus and everything to do with the false conception that you can 'shape' your body.

Toning comes from the cash cow that our current media is relative to physique transformation and fat loss.

And if it were to stem from something 'sciency' I'd be willing to bet it would come from the terms myogenic and neurogenic tone.



Agreed.

It's not all about the CNS and muscle tonus though. Heavy weight training promotes myofibrillar hypertrophy whicn in turn, increases your muscle density or tone at rest (myogenic).

Doesn't mean higher reps are bad, a combo is best IMO once you factor in the theoretical ability to train for sacroplasmic vs. myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Neurogenic tone has to do with muscle tone under movement.



Have you done research on this beyond a textbook? I ask only b/c I've seen research suggesting full recruitment around 80-85% MVIC. I haven't looked at the data in a while but I'm interested to hear where you're pulling this from.

Thanks.

And if it were to stem from something 'sciency' I'd be willing to bet it would come from the terms myogenic and neurogenic tone.

I thought myogenic tone was how contracted a muscle is at rest, which is caused by some muscle fibers being active at rest, which again is caused by some neural activity, some motor neurons are sending action potentials to their muscle fibers even at rest to maintain this low level of contraction, IE, what I was talking about with muscle tone (contracted due to some neural activity).
If that is not it, what is myogenic tone?

Myofibrillar hypertrophy increases the amount of contractile proteins in the muscle, the definition of it has nothing to do with nerve activation as far as I know, just that you have hypertrophy of the muscle (increasing cross-sectional area) by increasing the amount of contractile proteins. But then again, I may have missunderstood myogenic tone.. if this is not what I was talking about, then what is it?

Where I got this from.. I've always been interested in this and I've read a lot throughout the years, but I can't really remember any referrences. I do remember reading about a guy who said all motor units were recruited at 80% voluntary muscle action (can't remember if it was iso or not), he referred to some studies, but when I checked them I found out that they did not monitor all of the MTs in the study, only a selected few, and all of these selected few got activated at 80%.. so I assumed he was either full of **** or he was really saying that at 80% all the MUs that you CAN activate at your current level of training will be activated.. not all the MUs that are actually present in the spine and "connected" to the muscle you are contracting.

Do you have any of the research suggesting full recruitment? I'd love to read it, as this is something I'm a but unsure about now.

I recently had a discussion about this over at JP's:
Strength vs. Hypertrophy - JP Fitness Forums - Personal Training

I'm Karky there too. The discussion starts at the 5th post which is where I start asking questions.

 

[stroutman81]

I thought myogenic tone was how contracted a muscle is at rest, which is caused by some muscle fibers being active at rest, which again is caused by some neural activity, some motor neurons are sending action potentials to their muscle fibers even at rest to maintain this low level of contraction, IE, what I was talking about with muscle tone (contracted due to some neural activity).
If that is not it, what is myogenic tone?

That is myogenic tone.

More contractile elements (myofibrillar hypetrophy) = greater myogenic tone.

Sorry if I misspoke making it seem like they were one in the same. Does that clear things up?

Myofibrillar hypertrophy increases the amount of contractile proteins in the muscle, the definition of it has nothing to do with nerve activation as far as I know,

See above.

just that you have hypertrophy of the muscle (increasing cross-sectional area) by increasing the amount of contractile proteins. But then again, I may have missunderstood myogenic tone.. if this is not what I was talking about, then what is it?

Nope, I think you got it... and I think some of what I typed above was misleading.

To be honest, I haven't looked at this stuff in a long ass time. I think I have some papers on my home hard drive, I'll check when I get home.

From what I remember, it's all related to muscle tonus, as you put it. More contractile elements in the muscle lead to more neuro-stimulation leads to greater myogenic tone (contraction at rest).

Don't quote me on that though. Again, I tend to disregard the stuff that doesn't matter all that much in my training.

From Berardi though:

Yeah, I know what they told you, lighten the load and go for the burn-- hogwash. To comprehend why this is indeed nonsense, we have to understand a few things about muscle tone in general. There are two types of muscle tone; myogenic and neurogenic. Don’t get thrown off by the sciency words; the first simply refers to your muscle tone at rest. It is affected by the density of your muscles; the greater the density of your muscles, the harder and firmer you will appear. Heavy training increases your myogenic tone through the hypertrophy (growth) of the contractile proteins myosin and actin (myosin and actin are by far the most dense components of skeletal muscle). Training in higher rep ranges promotes more sarcoplasmic (fluid) hypertrophy, which in turn yields a "softer" pumped look. If you want to be hard, firm, tight, etc, the latter is certainly not the way to go. The second aspect of a muscles' tone is neurogenic tone, or the tone that is expressed when movements or contractions occur. Again, lower rep training comes out on top as training with heavy loads will increase the sensitivity of alpha and gamma motor neurons, thus increasing neurogenic tone when conducting even the simplest of movements (i.e. walking, extending your arm to point, etc).

Where I got this from.. I've always been interested in this and I've read a lot throughout the years, but I can't really remember any referrences. I do remember reading about a guy who said all motor units were recruited at 80% voluntary muscle action (can't remember if it was iso or not), he referred to some studies, but when I checked them I found out that they did not monitor all of the MTs in the study, only a selected few, and all of these selected few got activated at 80%.. so I assumed he was either full of **** or he was really saying that at 80% all the MUs that you CAN activate at your current level of training will be activated.. not all the MUs that are actually present in the spine and "connected" to the muscle you are contracting.

When I'm less busy I'll have to check on Lyle's board. I remember seeing this discussed at length over there with supporting research but I know he's still claiming you can have full activation at 80-85% of MVIC. He's generally extremely well read so I'm sure he has some supporting docs for that claim... I'll let you know.

Obviously there are smaller muscles (that don't matter much in our training) that are fully recruited at much lower % of MVC and the rest of their output comes from increased coding. But that's not important in context here.

Do you have any of the research suggesting full recruitment? I'd love to read it, as this is something I'm a but unsure about now.

See above.

Admittedly I stopped 'nerding' over this stuff a few years ago. I used to research heavily and I have a **** ton of papers saved on various hard drives. After a while though, I just fell off that wagon. I stay more up to date on my nutrition research than training research.

 

[Karky]

well, Berardi says there isn't really what I'm thinking about. Let's say you've got 100 neurons connected to the muscle fibers in your biceps (I know it's unrealistical, but just to put a number on things) when you work your biceps, these will be activated to recruit the muscle fibers they connect to. However, at rest, these neurons still send some action potentials. Could this be something like "resting motor unit tone"?
I get that more contractile proteins will lead to a harder look because of higher muscle density (muscle tension is different than density, tension is created, as I see it, by muscle fibers contracting or trying to contract, you can get more muscle density without getting more muscle tension), but that is different from what I mean by "resting muscle tone"
What I mean is different from what myogenic tone, since what I'm talking about is simply nerve activation at rest, not necessarily related to how many contractile proteins you've got.

Examples: (assuming training can improve what I mean by resting muscle tone)
Example 1 Increased resting muscle tension due to more nerve activation
At rest 2 of the 100 MUs in the biceps are active.
Now after training for a while 4 of the MUs in the biceps will be active at rest.
In what I mean by resting muscle tone, more contractile proteins wouldn't increase it.

Example 2 increase in resting muscle tension due to more contractile proteins:
the 2 motor units that are active at rest are connected to muscle fibers that together contain 100000 contractile proteins, now after training, this number increases to 100500. The 2 motor units that are active during rest are now causing 500 more contractile proteins to constantly cross-bridge at rest. This would mean more muscle tension.
But that's different from what I said in the first example.
I think this is also different from myogenic tone, since myogenic tone appears to just be like this:
100000 contractile proteins - training - 100500 proteins = bigger and firmer muscles, but not necissarily because of more neural activity or because more proteins are cross-bridges?

More contractile elements in the muscle lead to more neuro-stimulation leads to greater myogenic tone (contraction at rest).

How does more contractile elements in the muscle lead to more neuro-stimulation? I get that, as in my second example, more contractile proteins would mean more contractile proteins crossbridging at rest if the same level of MU fireing was maintained at rest, but how could more proteins lead to MORE neuro stimulation (which I guess would have to be higher frequency of MU discharge or more MUs active at rest)

One of my textbooks says this about neural tone, though in a different area than with muscles: (McArdle, et al, 2006)

Most organs receive sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation. Both systems maintain a constant degree of activation (neural tone)

This is what I'm refering too, although not with sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation, but a constant degree of motor unit stimulation at rest which helps with for example maintaining posture, etc.

has this to say about the word "tone"

12. Physiology. a. the normal state of tension or responsiveness of the organs or tissues of the body.

So more tension in the muscles would mean an increased tone. I guess you could say something like "active tone" (same as neurological tone) which would be how tense a muscle is when it is working.
then resting tone, which is how tense a muscle is at rest. Contributed to by a few motor neurons constantly fireing to keep some tension in the muscle. The amount of tension in the muscle could be increased without increasing the amount of neurons constantly fireing (example 2) or with increasing the amount of neurons constantly fireing (example 1)

catch my drift? I hope the post is understandable.. I think I've found some different tone "things" Do you agree that these would be different from each other, and that they actually do exist? If so, then the problem is just the terminology, what is named what..

McArdle William D, Katch Frank I, & Katch Victor L (2006) Essentials of Exercise Physiology 3d ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

 

[i_love_muscle]

Karky or stroutman81, excuse my ignorance here, all this info is pretty new to me.

If a muscle is still tense at rest, exactly what does that mean?

I thought my musculature was hard and tight because I had so much fast twitch fiber ... yet despite my musculature being so hard and tight, the muscle tissue is still extremely flexible/stretchable (think gymnastics here).

So is it hard and tight all over because of fast twitch fiber ratio, or because of increased contractile proteins? Or a combination of both?

 

[Karky]

your muscles being hard and tight is probably because they are dense, which means they have undergone myofibrillar hypertrophy from training.

I think fast twitch muscle fibers are more dense than slow twitch, so someone who natrually has a lot of fast twitch fibers will have denser muscles.. I think.

 

[i_love_muscle]

Thanks, Karky. I guess that explains why I weigh so much ...

I'll try to find some info on this tonight. I might just pop up to the medical library on the weekend. If I find anything relevant, I'll copy the references and post them

 

[stroutman81]

well, Berardi says there isn't really what I'm thinking about. Let's say you've got 100 neurons connected to the muscle fibers in your biceps (I know it's unrealistical, but just to put a number on things) when you work your biceps, these will be activated to recruit the muscle fibers they connect to. However, at rest, these neurons still send some action potentials. Could this be something like "resting motor unit tone"?

That is what I deem as muscle tonus... the continue low level activation of MUs to maintain posture and the like. I believe myogenic tone might be one in the same as muscle tonus.

I get that more contractile proteins will lead to a harder look because of higher muscle density

Right.

(muscle tension is different than density, tension is created, as I see it, by muscle fibers contracting or trying to contract, you can get more muscle density without getting more muscle tension),

Tension is most definitely different than density, I agree with you there.

I wasn't suggesting myogenic tone = density

More along the lines that greater density (myofibrillar hypertrophy) tends to lead to greater sensitivity of the motor neurons. Through what pathways I do not know, unfortunately. I wonder if there are any other geeks around here who could answer that? That's what I remember in my 'long ago' research. Greater sensitivity to neuro-stimulation = greater tone.

That tone being myogenic tone.

From what I remember, myogenic tone = the tonus you are talking about here. It is the low level activation at rest.

I'm at home now, I thought I had some papers on this but I can't turn them up. Here is a blurb from Christian Thib on the subject...

You see, myogenic tone refers to a state of partial muscle activation. It means that even at rest the nervous system is keeping some tension in the muscle, probably to stay in a state of readiness if ever a situation requiring an instant force production arises.

Myogenic tone will be determined mostly by two things:

1. Neural efficiency: The more efficient the nervous system is, the greater your myogenic tone will be. Since heavy lifting improves the neural aspect of force production much more so than lighter lifting, it's only logical that this form of training will lead to more tonus over time.

2. Specific muscle fiber development: Some studies have shown that HTMU's (fast-twitch fibers) are predominantly superficial muscle fibers, while slow-twitch fibers lie deeper in the muscle. Preferential hypertrophy of the HTMU's, which are close to the skin surface, may make a muscle appear more solid. This is especially true when your body fat levels are low.

He also states this in that same article:

Myogenic tone is what's often called "tonus." While this is a taboo word in hardcore training circles because of the "I just want to tone" crowd, the fact remains that it's a very real phenomenon.

but that is different from what I mean by "resting muscle tone"

Density, sure.

Myogenic tone though, I'm not so sure. And I mean that, I'm really not sure, lol. Based on what Thib states above, I'd say myogenic tone and your tonus are one in the same.

 

[Karky]

I think there is just a lot of confusion about this subject because of all the terms. I also bet different people and different literature might use the same terms in a different manner and meaning different things. I think that's where the problem in understanding all of this lies. I think we both really understand the different things like density, muscle tension, tone, etc, but it's hard to communicate because we don't really know what the established terms for the phenomenons are.