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by: RustyMoore
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The key to muscle mass is a high enough volume of lifts to induce a bit of damage to the muscles. After the muscle is damaged it is important to rest that muscle enough for a full recovery. Ideally when that muscle is recovered, it will be slightly bigger. Over time this builds a larger muscle. The key to muscle tone is to do less volume of sets, but work out more frequently.

How Many Sets for Muscle Tone?

The goal for muscle tone is to avoid damaging the muscles. One of the ways to insure that damage doesn't occur is to keep the volume low. I would recommend 2 exercises per body part and 3-4 sets for each exercise.

How Many Reps Per Set?

Strength training done properly, can actually give you amazing muscle definition. I think that you can get alright definition with medium to high reps, but you just won't reach your highest potential unless you include periods of time when you are lifting in the lower rep range. There are times when I do 3 sets of 8 reps per exercise and other times when I do 4 sets of 3 reps per exercise.

Make Sure and Work the Muscles Often When Going for Tone!

Muscle tone is basically the partial contraction of a muscle in a relaxed state, so your muscles are contacting a bit on their own even when you are completely relaxed. The way to increase this is to contract you muscles hard (workout) on a frequent basis. The problem with damaging a muscle is that you will be unable to work that muscle again until it is repaired. If you work a damaged muscle too soon, it will result in over-training. Another problem with working a damaged muscle is that it won't be able to contract hard during your workout, so that workout won't be very productive when it comes to increasing muscle tone.

Avoid Going to Failure or Using Forced Reps When Toning Your Muscles

Going to failure and using forced reps is great for muscle mass, but bad for muscle tone. These two lifting techniques insure that muscle damage will occur! Another problem with going to failure is that "you are training your muscle to fail". Your body will react by not contracting the muscle as hard during the next set.

Here is Common Mass Building Split Routine

A popular mass building routine is the "3 day split". A 3 day split simply means that all the muscles in your body are worked in 3 different workouts. So what a lot of people do is work chest, shoulders, and triceps on one day...back and biceps on another day...and legs and abs on the third day. The benefit here is that since the muscles are getting damaged, they need more recovery time. Also since you are only focused on a couple of body parts, you could really do a high volume of intense lifts for each body part.

The 2 Day Split Muscle Tone Workout Routine

Since you want to work each muscle group more often when going for tone, you should try to split you workout over two days instead of three. The great thing here is that you don't need much recovery time when you don't damage the muscles.

Note: I'm just barely scratching the surface here when it comes to setting up a good workout routine. The main goal for muscle tone is that you just need to remember that muscle damage and sore muscles are not your friend. Lift just enough to generate strong contractions, and spend the rest of the time burning off body fat with intense cardio...also don't be afraid to lift heavy as long as you do not reach failure.

About the Author

Want to get extremely toned Hollywood style six pack abs? You will want to click here for cutting-edge, up-to-date, Fitness Tips!

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