Questions from a beginner

R

Reactive 11

0
Hi,

I am new in all of this and I have few questions:

1) I am looking into toning my body (to my understanding: toning is not sizing up your muscles as in body building; it's defining your muscles so that they can be seen clearly and obvousily fat is lost in the process). So my 1st question is, is my understanding of toning correct or wrong?

2) Secondly, as far as I keep hearing toning is repeating weight exercises with fixed weights which is not the case with body building where you keep increasing the weights (which grows the size of the muscle more), is this true?

3) How much muscle increase do you gain from toning if any? The reason I am asking is again I don't want to size up my muscles as with body builders.

4) Currently, I am thin so I don't have much fat, which do I need to do more in order to tone up my body? Eating? Weight Exercises (fixed weights or increasing)? Aerobics? Combination of all?

That's all my questions for now, thank you in advance :)
 
Reactive 11 said:
Hi,

I am new in all of this and I have few questions:

1) I am looking into toning my body (to my understanding: toning is not sizing up your muscles as in body building; it's defining your muscles so that they can be seen clearly and obvousily fat is lost in the process). So my 1st question is, is my understanding of toning correct or wrong?

Wrong, to see your muscles you need to lowerbody fat levels through diet and excercise. If you want to stimulate your muscles so they grow you need to use load progressions and a calorie surplus. When dieting to lose bodyfat weight training is VERY important so you can preserve and/or gain lean muscle mass while shredding fat.

2) Secondly, as far as I keep hearing toning is repeating weight exercises with fixed weights which is not the case with body building where you keep increasing the weights (which grows the size of the muscle more), is this true?

You need to use load progressions if you want a lean and muscluar body. Besides its more fun getting stronger.

3) How much muscle increase do you gain from toning if any? The reason I am asking is again I don't want to size up my muscles as with body builders.

No need to worry about approaching the mass of bodybuilders unless you hit the roids.

4) Currently, I am thin so I don't have much fat, which do I need to do more in order to tone up my body? Eating? Weight Exercises (fixed weights or increasing)? Aerobics? Combination of all?

A soild workout routine - try this

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459533 and again don't worry about the title your not going to get BIG no time soon.


That's all my questions for now, thank you in advance :)
Click to expand...

In bold dude, good luck.
 
newf said:
In bold dude, good luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks newf,

I already started training and I am trying to keep it up. Here is what I am doing currently, please let me know what is wrong and what can be improved in my program.

I lift weights almost everyday and concentrate each day on 2 muscles.

For instance

Day 1: Chest and Biceps
Day 2: Back And Tri
Day 3: Shoulders and legs
Day 4: Chest and Biceps
Day 5: Back And Tri
Day 6: Shoulders and legs
Day 7: Day off

and the loop goes ( I consider the day I change to another pair of muscles, the previous muscle is resting for the next 2 days)

I start my lift weights exercises with a max 5 reps (light weights) warm up for the muscle I am exercising.

Then I do 10 reps/3 sets starting with what I feel I can lift easily and gradually I increase it by 2.5 or 5 kilos.

My question is, is this right to do and is this what is called "load progressions"? Further, which is better to increase the weight or the reps of the sets?

Before I start any of my exercises, I warm up on the treadmill or cycling machine for 15 mins and do some stretches. I am planning to do some aerobics after the warm up and stretches before starting the weight exercises, is that ok?

After I finish the weight exercises, I do abs exercises as much as I can - average of 3 sets/25 reps.

Sometimes, if I decide to take a day off, I play soccer twice a week.

Again, my goal is to show my muscles because I am skinny but not really get them upsized.

As for my diet. I stay away from fat as much as possible. My diet has a considerable amount of carbohydrates and proteins. I have 3 meals per day (Break fast, lunch and dinner) and I eat 2 hrs before exercising (can I cut them to 1 hr?). Is 3 meals enough and do I need to change my diet, if yes, what needs to be changed?

I have a last question, if I Continue training and my muscles increase in size as desired, what will happen if I stop weight training for whatever reason, will the muscle mass I gained change to fat that will eventually turn my muscle into wat I can describe as jelly muscle? And If I want to maintain this size, can I only maintain it with aerobics and other non-weight exercises or do I need to lift fixed weights since I no longer seek to increase them through load progressions?
 
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