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‘But I
don’t want Muscles!’ - Part 1:
What Muscle is,
and how to Build (or Avoid) it
Copyright 2005 Tanja Gardner
One of the common comments I hear from my female clients
is, “Please don’t give me any weights work –
I don’t want any muscle, I just want to tone.”
The reasons differ from client to client, but it most often
they seem to be based on a misunderstanding of what muscle
is, how we build it, what it has to do with weight loss
– or some combination of the above. There’s
a lot of misinformation outside of the fitness world about
muscles and what they do, so I’d like to spend the
next two articles exploring the realities behind the myths.
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WHAT IS MUSCLE?
When I was younger, I’d never really thought about
what the ‘stuff’ between my skin and my bones
was made of. I understood that muscles were what bodybuilders
had, and fat was something that made you fat, and that I
had some of each. I think, though, that I believed that
they existed inside some kind of other substance that filled
the space between my skin and my bones. Then, in secondary
school, I learned that, in a healthy person, most of this
magical substance was just muscle. In fact, I learned that,
aside from my body’s networks of organs, blood vessels
and nerves, and my skeleton there isn’t really much
under my skin except for muscle and fat.
I learned that muscles were an incredible network of fibres
that allowed me to move my limbs, to stay sitting or standing
upright, to talk, breathe, and pretty much to translate
any thought I had into action of some kind. I learned that
if I didn’t use them, muscles would shrink and weaken,
and if I did, they’d grow stronger. And I learned
that as my muscles grew stronger, so did I. All of this was quite a revelation for me at the time,
so I can understand the initial confusion that exists amongst
so many of my clients – why they want to tone without
building muscles. The truth though, is that muscle is the
only thing under their skin that can be toned, and that
‘toning’ often simply means that muscles become
slightly more visible (which then makes the whole body look
smoother and firmer). So without enough muscle to start
with, there’s nothing there that can be toned.
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BULIDING THE RIGHT SIZED MUSCLES
Often, the clients I speak to don’t have a problem
with the idea of a little muscle. The problem is that many
don’t realise it isn’t an ‘all or nothing’
thing. Unfortunately, because of the lack of clear information
out there in the media, the only image they have to associate
‘women’ with ‘muscle’ is one of
a female bodybuilder at the peak of her competition physique.
Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting such
a physique if that’s a client’s aim, but for
most of the women I speak to, the possibility of developing
such large, defined muscles is really quite scary!
Those kinds of muscles, however, don’t happen quickly
or easily. Really large muscles require long, intense workouts
over a period of time, and a base level of testosterone
– a hormone most women don’t have in sufficient
quantities (without the use of steroids, anyway) for size
to become a problem. Granted, there are women with naturally
high testosterone levels (and I’m one!), who will
put on muscle more quickly. But even for me, muscles don’t
suddenly appear, fully-formed overnight. So if I notice
I’m gradually building size in an area I don’t
want it, it’s not difficult for me to change my training
in that body area to gradually reduce the size again.
Also, many people believe any kind of weights work will
automatically increase muscle size. The truth is that not
all training produces size increases. There are a number
of variables you can play with in strength training –
the heaviness of the weight, the number of repetitions of
the movement, and the time you allow yourself to rest between
groups of repetitions (or sets). Very generally speaking,
training with a heavy weight and low repetitions in each
set will increase strength; training with a medium-to-heavy
weight and medium repetitions will increase muscle size;
and training with a lighter weight with high repetitions
per set will increase endurance.
In practice, it’s not actually quite this simple,
and there are other factors to consider. The important point
is that not all training will increase muscle size, that
some muscle is necessary if you want to tone, and that working
with a competent trainer will help ensure you get only the
results that you want from your training.
In Part 2 of the article,
we look at why muscle is so important for weight management
and long- term health.
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