Toning workouts are useless...
Well, maybe not COMPLETELY useless but here's the thing...and it's the reason why I CAN'T STAND the word "toning" when it's applied to training, especially for women.
The phrase "toning up", to me, immediately conjures up an image of an unfortunate woman doing light-weight, ridiculously high-rep, pink 2 lb dumbbell curls while simultaneously wondering why she's not getting any results for all the hard work and training she's doing.
Then she says "I guess weight training doesn't work for me," quits weight training and focuses on aerobic training, which REALLY doesn't work her...then she gets discouraged and quits training altogether.
Then she buys an "electric ab toning belt" that is even MORE useless (it won't even hold up your pants...what kind of belt is that?), wasting time, money and feeding a cycle of perceived powerlessness about changing her own body.
Ok, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic but I've seen this situation play out many times before and, quite frankly, it gets me really upset.
I HATE that women are constantly being deceived in the "health and fitness" magazines about what really works for the female body...and sister, it ain't flailing around with 2 pound dumbbells doing curls and kickbacks because you don't want to "bulk up."
My wife and I debate about this all the time...we're totally on the same page about HOW a woman should train (HARD, and with the same intensity as men), however she says that women use the word "toned" to describe the way they want to look...lean and sculpted with some muscle definition...nice shoulder caps, an outline of abs without getting too ripped, and legs with definition and shape.
And I agree with her, to a great extent. Women do have a good idea about how they want to look. However, my beef is that the word "toning" is like the word "hardgainer" for guys. It takes your power away and you end up hesitant to do the type of training that really works to get the job done.
I want you to close your eyes and picture what a "toning" exercise looks like...now open them (how did you just read that with your eyes closed? ...
...did you just picture a heavy deadlift?
Of course you didn't. I'll bet you pictured a lightweight curl, kickback or leg extension type of exercise.
Which do you think is going to be more effective for changing a woman's body composition...a deadlift or a kickback?
My point exactly.
Toning is useless.
That's enough ranting from me. So now that I've told you why I feel the way I do about toning and how, to me, it's part of the problem and not part of the solution, I've got the solution for you...
Hard work and REAL training...(surprise!).
Read about the 5 'Muscle Toning' myths females must STOP believing that goes into detail about this.
And now that I've totally gone off on the word "toning," I'll tell you right up front, she uses the word "toning" a lot in that article. And it's basically for the same reason that my wife uses it...it describes the look that women want to achieve from their training.
And I'm ok with that...just make sure you think of in terms of the look you want to achieve, not the useless training that many women mistakenly do to try and achieve it.
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Let me just finish with this...I've known Flavia for a few years and I've seen her train...she trains HARD and she trains INTELLIGENTLY.
If you're a woman who thrives on hard work, you're going to LOVE Flavia's style of training and you'll definitely want to learn more about it. And you'll see from her pictures on the page that her physique is the result of hard work and not 2 lb dumbbell "toning" exercises...
5 'Muscle Toning' myths females must STOP believing
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