If you know me personally, you know there's one word fitness buzzword that drives me crazier than most, which is...
This idea of "toning."
In this article, I’m going to walk through four things:
Why “toning” isn’t really a thing
The solution to the “toning” problem
How to adjust your efforts accordingly
A really helpful summary with practical takeaways
The Awkward Truth about "Toning"
I have bad news.
As far as I am concerned, "toning" isn't really a thing.
But, why?
I think it's because the culturally defined definition of "toning" is something like this - making one or two choice body parts look a little bit leaner without a full-body shift in fat loss reduction.
For example, I will hear a lot of women tell me they want to "tone" their arms.
So what people are really saying when they say they want to "tone" is that they want to spot reduce fat from specific locations on their body. And I will admit, that would be amazing! My goal with this article is not to shame or make fun of anyone who uses the term "toning."
Unfortunately, there really isn't any promising literature that I know of to suggest that “toning” in this sense is possible.
And in my own experience with my own body and as a coach to others, I've never seen anyone successfully spot reduce fat in any meaningful way.
Examples of “Toning” Efforts
Just to be clear about what I mean by that, here are a few examples of how people attempt to "tone":
Doing lots of crunches because they want more visible abs
Doing lots of side crunches because they want to ditch their love handles
Doing lots of arm curls and pushups because they want tighter-looking arms
And I know what you're wondering.
"How does it work then? If I'm insecure about my flabby arms or my love handles, what should I do? Help!"
We'll get to those questions in a second, but I want to briefly address why "toning" as you've likely understood it until this point isn't an effective strategy.
Why "Toning" Isn't Really a Thing
Simply put, the way we all lose and gain body fat is mostly genetically predispositioned, which means we all carry and distribute our total body fat in different ways.
You don't get to choose how your body fat comes off and in what order.
For example, when I am bulked, I am a “love handles and leg fat” guy, but my back and arms tend to stay pretty lean even when overall I'm sitting at a higher body fat percentage.
I definitely didn't choose that!
And what this means in context of "toning" is that no amount of side crunches is going to convince my love handles to go away without being in a caloric deficit.
Without a caloric deficit, it's just not possible to lose meaningful amounts of body fat.
In short, you can't defy the laws of thermodynamics and energy balance through cheat codes like side crunches and bicep curls.
That’s really the punchline of this write-up.
So, if that’s the case, what can we do about it?
The Solution to the “Toning” Problem
Since I don't like to be the guy who just points out problems without providing solutions, I'm happy to tell you that there is a better way!
The way to "tone" is to get leaner overall through getting into a caloric deficit for long enough to allow your body to burn through the excess fat storage that led you to want to "tone" in the first place.
In addition to that, training your muscles for hypertrophy will cause them to grow and thus "push out" on your skin more, which will create that leaner look.
Check out this photo of Matt Morsia.
He's very jacked and very lean and yet I can guarantee you there were no deliberate "toning" efforts going on here.
He simply built a lot of muscle through resistance training and then tailored his caloric intake and activity level to reduce his body fat while maintaining the muscle he had already built.
So ultimately, "toning" is about losing fat while building or maintaining muscle along the way.
Now that we know that, I want to focus on how you can apply this for yourself.
How you would “Tone” if “toning” were a thing
Let's consider a very specific example.
Your arms are flabby and you want them to be leaner. The way to make this happen would be to:
Firstly, start eating in a modest caloric deficit while prioritizing a diet adequately high in protein.
The deficit is what will drive the fat loss that will eventually result in your leaner looking arms.
This emphasizes the importance of the “calories in, calories out” (CICO) formula when it comes to body recomposition.
And, if you need help figuring out how to calculate your protein intake, check out this article I wrote once upon a time.
Secondly, walk more. Although it’s impossible to issue a one-size-fits-all recommendation for walking, the idea is to remember that walking can be an extremely powerful fat loss tool.
Thirdly, in this particular example, you would start training your arms in the 6-20 rep range for probably 10-20 sets as a part of an intelligent training program.
Even though you're in a deficit, the stimulus from this kind of exercise might even allow you to build a bit of muscle size to help emphasize your newly "toned" arms.
What would be even better?
An even better approach would be to train your entire body in the 6-20 rep range to see full body improvements while simply biasing more sets toward your arms because you’d like to see specialized improvement in that area.
This is an important distinction because you might be thinking, “Wait, I thought you said you can’t target improvements in specific areas?” I said you can’t target fat reduction in specific areas, but you can send more muscle growth signals to certain body parts than others by training them more.
So if you want to grow your arms, train them with more sets than the rest of your body.
Note too that this works particularly well for people who have never trained meaningfully with weights before.
People in this category are eligible for what we call “noobie gains” in the fitness industry, which means your body is likely to grow new muscle very quickly since you’ve never trained before.
And, for anyone reading this who might want to “lift their butt” or something similar, you would imitate this same strategy by training your glutes, hamstrings, and quads (probably in that order of importance).
Additional Thoughts on “Toning”
FAT LOSS DISTRIBUTION CAN BE FRUSTRATING
One very real and frustrating reality of losing body fat is that the body fat doesn't always come off the way we might want it to.
For example, if you're a woman that is overweight, you might find that you start losing body fat from your feminine attributes like your breasts or even your butt before you start losing body fat from your midsection.
That’s frustrating.
The reality is that there isn't much to be done about that aside from resistance training over many years to help grow your underlying muscle bellies to help emphasize whichever look you might personally find most appealing.
Does that suck? Totally!
Like I mentioned, I myself fall into this category.
But the only way to overcome that is to get your calories in check, train hard, and let your body transform until you’re as lean all over as you need to be to feel aesthetically pleasing.
BUild muscle in the right areas for optimal aesthetics
Sometimes building muscle in the right areas can help make a physique that used to carry fat in the wrong areas appear much “better” aesthetically.
For example, if you're a dude with a big belly at the moment, you might benefit from growing your chest and shoulders because that will make you look less like a pear and more like a strong guy who just needs to cut back on the pizza.
And then you can cut back on the pizza and shift your pear-ness toward a hint of that V-taper most women historically find attractive in men - broad shoulders that "V" downward to a relatively trim waistline.
Or for the ladies, building a strong and shapely foundation of glutes, quads, and hamstrings can create the illusion of a smaller waist.
As polarizing as Greg O’Gallagher (pictured here) can be for some people in the fitness industry, I think he has done one of the best jobs at identifying optimal male physique proportions when it comes to peak aesthetics.
THERE ARE NO SPECIFIC EXERCISES THAT “TONE” YOU
In my opinion, there are no specific forms of exercise that will "tone" you.
This is probably going to offend some people, but pure barre is not going to “tone” you.
That being said, it's totally fine to enjoy a pure barre class for the fitness benefits it offers you!
You'll probably develop a lot of core stability, full body control, and you might even build a tiny bit of muscle if you're transitioning into some form of exercise from a formerly sedentary lifestyle. I just think it would be silly to consider that “toning.”
You still have to control your overall caloric intake in order to lose body fat and reveal your lean tissue even if the extra calorie burn from group fitness efforts help you drop a few quick pounds at the beginning.
SOME PEOPLE LOOK HOT FOR NO REASON
That's called having favorable genetics for body composition, and I say that because it's too easy to see a girl featured in a hot new TikTok or Reel about how to “get toned for summer” and think, "She looks amazing! I should buy her programs so I can look exactly like her."
It's actually very possible that she was already “hot” by twenty-first century standards before she ever wrote her “toning” program, so try not to be naive about situations like that.
In other words, she didn’t use the program she’s advertising herself to get her current physique. And even if she did, there’s no guarantee that your body would respond the same way.
Secondly, have you ever had that one friend or co-worker who just kind of ate whatever they wanted, didn't exercise much, and still looked great? Me too. They exist, and let's not forget that.
Some people look hot for no reason, which means you can’t look to their programs for non-negotiable “toning” success.
How Much "Toning" Did I Do to Achieve the Physique at the Bottom of This Article?
None.
I achieved the physique you see below through a modest caloric surplus for about six months to move from around 200 pounds to 173 pounds.
I supplemented with lots of walking.
I trained mostly in the 6-20 rep range 5-6 times per week for as many sets as I could recover from.
No toning. No pure barre. No hot yoga. No group classes.
Summary
“Toning” isn’t really a thing in the sense that you can’t spot-reduce fat, but there’s no reason to feel hopeless because…
You can still achieve what people think of as “toning” by losing fat across your entire body while building muscle through resistance training.
The ”calories in, calories out” (CICO) equation is still king for fat loss, which means a calorie-controlled diet will be optimal for “toning.”
Walking is a great way to supplement your “toning” effort.
Training with 10-20 sets per muscle group primarily in the 6-20 rep range tends to be best for muscle growth, which will help you appear more “toned.”
It might be a good idea to strategically train certain body parts more than others to create a more aesthetic overall appearance.
Men would typically be smart to train their chests, shoulders, and arms.
Women would typically be smart to train their glutes, quads, and hamstrings.
If you need help doing all of this, hiring a body recomposition coach would be a great next step.
Thanks for reading! I genuinely hope you were able to take something meaningful away from this article.
If you feel like it brought you any value at all, consider sending it to your friend at work who has been doing 100 crunches before bed in preparation for hot girl summer.
See you in another article, friends.
-Andrew
