Building and toning muscles is a popular goal in the world of strength training and fitness. Whether you want to achieve a lean physique, boost your confidence, or practice healthy habits, building and toning muscles is a suitable way to accomplish your goals. Both offer several benefits besides the common ones of increasing strength and reliving stress.
What is the difference between building and toning muscle?
Building and toning muscle involve separate yet similar actions to achieve goals. Some actions may be counterproductive depending on your goals, so knowing the difference between building and toning muscles can help you follow regimens that will help you accomplish your goals.
How to build muscle
When you choose to build muscle, your ultimate goal is to increase your overall muscle mass. Reaching this objective takes several steps, including:
-
Limiting cardiovascular exercises.
-
Consistently pushing your muscles to failure — the point at which you can't maintain perfect form.
-
Increasing the sets, reps, and weight of your weight training exercises as you get stronger.
Eating more calories than you need, including protein, healthy fats, and carbohydrates.
Gaining muscle can be challenging, but you can achieve your goals by eating the proper foods and dedicating yourself to weight training that enriches your muscles, such as resistance training, which correlates with pushing yourself to exercise to failure. Resistance training involves adjusting the weight, sets, reps and range of motions while exercising to build muscle. It goes hand-in-hand with progressive overload, when you gradually increase the weight, reps and sets to challenge your muscles. Through resistance training, your muscles break down and grow back bigger and stronger as they repair themselves. Major muscle groups people target include the chest, back, shoulders, arms, abdominals and legs. You can perform various exercises to focus on specific muscles or work several at once.
How to tone muscle
When you want to tone your muscles, your ultimate goal is to build lean muscle and not gain excess fat. This process will increase your muscle definition and help you achieve a leaner physique. It's common for people to eat in a calorie deficit when they have goals for muscle toning because the deficit supports fat loss, and when it's paired with light resistance training, it helps you gain toned muscles and appearance. Muscle toning involves more exercise variety, so you aren't bulking up too much. Light- to medium-weight training and cardio can help you maintain and tone your muscles without overgrowing them. Pilates, barre and yoga are popular methods for toning your body's muscles. Many exercises you can do for muscle building also work for muscle toning, such as:
-
Squats
-
Lungs
-
Chest presses
-
Deadlifts
With those exercises, using your body or light weights is best when your goal is toning. Some cardio-focused activities you could incorporate into your workout to help tone your muscles include:
-
Running
-
Elliptical
-
Jump roping
-
Kickboxing
-
Swimming
-
Dancing
-
Hiking
Benefits of building and toning muscles
Whether you want to achieve your desired body appearance, boost your confidence and self-esteem, or practice healthy habits, building and toning muscles is a suitable way to accomplish your goals. Both offer several benefits besides the common ones of increasing strength and relieving stress.
Advantages of building muscles specifically include:
-
Increasing bone health and bone density
-
Lowering the risk of injury
-
Improving balance
-
Easing chronic disease symptoms
When you tone your muscles, you can enjoy these benefits:
-
Increasing flexibility and mobility
-
Improving energy levels
-
Enhancing endurance
-
Decrease the risk of diseases like heart disease or diabetes
