How to tone your muscles!

The concept of muscle ‘tone' is not what most people perceive it to be. We often hear the phrase ‘I just want to look more toned’, or ‘I want toned muscles’. This idea doesn’t have much to do with actual muscle tone. When we say we want to ‘look more toned’ what we’re really asking for is a little bit of muscle gain (hypertrophy) with a combined reduction of body fat.

Muscle tone is more about the motor fibre recruitment within a muscle - and it can work both to our advantage and to our disadvantage.

Too much muscle tone (hypertonicity) means that the muscle is overworking, or that it is ‘switched on’ when it shouldn’t be. For example, many people find that when they are standing up, they are gripping with their glutes (butt cheeks). But we shouldn’t need to grip on with our butt just to keep us upright - in this case, the person’s gluteal muscles would be hypertonic and overworking.

If we have excess neuromuscular tone, this can create tissue changes, pulls and tensioned areas within our fascia that can affect the way the joints move. This can lead to tightness, pain & injury - as well as the fact that a muscle won’t work as effectively if it doesn’t ever get a chance to ‘switch off.’

On the other hand, sometimes we want to increase muscle tone. Generally, this means that we want to fire up our motor unit and recruit more muscle fibres. When more muscle fibres are used, a movement will be -and feel- stronger.

For example, if we train with an external load, such as a resistance band, we need to recruit more muscle fibres to bring about a movement. Over time this creates changes in the movement pathways and we become more efficient. So when we do the same movement without resistance, it feels super easy, light, airy and effortless. This is increased strength through increased muscle recruitment and tone.

It’s important to know about muscle tone so that we know when to use it, and when to reduce it. It can be difficult to switch off hypertonic muscles so we want to make sure that we’re using the right muscles for the right job. Check out our YouTube channel for exercise ideas to increase strength and appropriate muscle tone with resistance as well as the mobility Monday playlist for when you need those tight muscles to switch off!