Monday Tips – 5 Toning & Female Weight Training Myths That Must Die

So many women still fear muscle and end up detouring their progress instead of achieving what should be a relatively easy goal, “muscle toning”. Women are told they can’t build big muscles because of hormones but then paradoxically told to use low weight and high reps and go for the burn! What the heck?!

Females spend years trying to achieve what a few months could potentially bring if the intensity of the workouts were progressed in an intelligent and structured fashion. Here are 5 muscle toning myths and female weight training myths that must die!

Myth #1 – Toning is not “firming up the muscle”. 

The Facts: Muscle is already firm. There is no such thing as a soft flabby muscle only soft flabby fat.  Muscles do not go from soft to hard or hard to soft – they shrink, grow or stay the same size.  Muscles can get weaker or stronger. Muscles themselves do not “firm-up” or “tone”.   There is no such thing as a “toning exercise” and your abdominals don’t tone themselves by doing 100 crunches!

Myth #2 – Toning is not a result of just burning fat

The Facts: Toning is in fact a two-step process.  Burn fat and add lean muscle.  All the healthy bodies you find attractive are shaped by muscle and covered by a healthy layer of fat that smoothes it out to a shapely appearance.  You must dedicate a phase of your year to gain 3-5 pounds of lean muscle so your butt looks round, your legs look trim and your shoulders and arms are sculpted.  Plus, adding just one pound of calorie-burning muscle revs up your daily metabolic rate.  For every pound of muscle you add you’ll burn an extra 50 calories a day or 350 calories a week or 18,200 calories a year!  You need to burn about 3500 calories to lose one pound so just one pound of new muscle can help you keep off  5.2 pounds of fat a year! If you gained 5 pounds of muscle then you would keep off 26 pounds a year! That’s insane and now you know why females who lift weights have an easier time staying lean! In a moment I’ll show you how to really tone your muscles…

Myth #3 – Toning is not a result of just adding lean muscle

The Facts: Again, toning is a two-step process.  Add lean muscle and burn fat.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that by just adding 3-5 pounds of lean muscle, you’ll never have to watch your diet again. Muscle certainly increases your metabolic rate to help you maintain your weight but you need TRUE metabolic workouts that have a huge AFTERBURN and calorie burn or else you’ll never have the muscle definition underneath the layer of fat! Once the fat is removed and you’ve added some muscle, you’ll find it much easier to maintain your lean physique. My upcoming program, CURVALICIOUS, will teach you how to do targeted metabolic fat loss workouts to burn fat and sculpt your muscles at the same time!

Myth #4 – Toning is a result of low weight, high reps and lots of bodyweight exercises.

The Facts:  Somehow the media has convinced you that if we just do bodyweight exercises or light weights for high reps, your muscles will magically take on a beautiful shape without growing or bulging.

Training with light weight, higher reps and primarily bodyweight exercises is not wrong but you must understand it results in myogenic muscle tone, which is not the muscle tone that results in killer definition and curvy body parts.

Myth #5 – Heavy weights will make you look “bulky”. 

The Facts:  Eating too much food will make you look bulky! Your muscles grow on calories so as long as you manage your calories, you’ll manage your weight and shape.

Again, the media has detoured your progress by having you believe that if you challenge yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on a bulky and unfeminine appearance.  If you believe this, you probably still believe in the Easter Bunny & Santa Claus!

Women need to trust that building minimal amounts of lean muscle speeds your metabolism, burns fat and the most important factor to having a shapely body.  Muscle is what gives the shape to your body!

Plus, most women don’t produce enough testosterone to bulk up from a few gym sessions a week. God didn’t intend women to look like men (go figure), so he made the chemistry of each gender’s respective bodies different.  (Can I get an amen?) In fact, most women produce 10-30 TIMES less testosterone than men and most men have a hard time bulking up! A big, bulky body is only attainable via one means: steroids.

Women must also trust that getting bulking doesn’t just happen by accident.  You have a better chance of winning the lottery than bulking up overnight.

And lastly, gaining lean muscle does not require you to gain fat. That’s simply not true. It’s possible to gain lean muscle without putting on additional fat weight and I’m about to show exactly how to do that in a sec!

The entire CURVALICIOUS Body Sculpting System will be released on May 21st! If you have any comments or questions about this article, please leave them below!