Toning muscle?

FewFew

Just wondering, if you do fast low resistance excercises on a muscle group will it kinda tone-up and look smaller? I'm not looking to build muscle but rather lessen the volume of existing muscle without just letting it waste away or something.

Canis Lupus

Eh? My understanding is you can't do weights to make your muscles smaller.

Can you explain the problem a little better?

digme

Fewcifur wrote: »

Just wondering, if you do fast low resistance excercises on a muscle group will it kinda tone-up and look smaller? I'm not looking to build muscle but rather lessen the volume of existing muscle without just letting it waste away or something.

no

AugustusMinimus

You can do two things with the appearance of muscle.

You can make it bigger or smaller.

There really is no such thing as muscle tone or toning. When people say they want to "tone up" what they actually mean is that they want to put on a small bit of muscle while reducing body fat.


BTW, loosing fat overall is likely to make your muscle smaller as losing fat will reduce level of intramuscular fat, which is fat stored inside your muscles.

FewFew

There is a difference between doing many low resistance reps and doing a few high resistance reps right?

I remember reading about Demi Moore changing her body shape for roles. GI Jane she built herself up to be physically able to do everything in the movie, then she lengthened her leg muscles to look more appropriate & dancer-like for Striptease.

I was just wondering if such body conditioning was possible by altering workouts.

My problem is that from years of playing sports etc my body is a certain way. I haven't played such sports in a fair while but my body is still the same shape. I have muscle that is no longer needed as it once was.
It doesn't seem to be wasting away, I was hoping there was some sort of active way of lengthening the tendons or whatever.

Colm_OReilly

Short answer, no you can't lengthen muscle/tendons.

chuck101

no offence OP but when someone says they want some hard earned muscle to go away it defo sets alarm bells ringing.I'm curious what sports you played in the past & why you feel the need to ''lengthen'' your muscles?

AugustusMinimus

Fewcifur wrote: »

There is a difference between doing many low resistance reps and doing a few high resistance reps right?

I remember reading about Demi Moore changing her body shape for roles. GI Jane she built herself up to be physically able to do everything in the movie, then she lengthened her leg muscles to look more appropriate & dancer-like for Striptease.

I was just wondering if such body conditioning was possible by altering workouts.

My problem is that from years of playing sports etc my body is a certain way. I haven't played such sports in a fair while but my body is still the same shape. I have muscle that is no longer needed as it once was.
It doesn't seem to be wasting away, I was hoping there was some sort of active way of lengthening the tendons or whatever.

You can't lenghten tendons or muscles.

In fact, if your tendons were to lenghten, your muscles would have to shorten to make up the difference.


I wouldn't advise anyone to do it, but if you want to lose muscle, reduce your calorie intake and start jogging, doing cross trainer on an empty stomach. Eventually your body will start to canabalise muscle for energy.