Do more reps help you get toned muscles?

Why is muscle tone important? Your muscle tone prepares you for action, maintains your balance and posture, generates heat that keeps your muscles healthy, and allows for a quick, unconscious reaction to any sudden internal/ external stimuli.

While there is some truth to the idea that lifting lighter weights for more reps does a better job of increasing the muscular endurance, lighter weights will not help you “tone” better than heavy weights. In fact, because heavier weights build the strength of your muscles, thereby helping to increase your metabolism and burn fat, lifting heavier weights with fewer reps (8 to 12 on average) and working until you’re fatigued is more effective at helping you reach your toning goals than lifting lighter weights. 

?  Not to mention that it’s more time efficient, too!

If you’ve been avoiding weights because you think that building muscle means that you’ll bulk up, think again. 

When you lift weights that are challenging, you actually create micro-tears in the muscle fibers. These tears are then repaired by the body (this is where soreness comes from!) and in that process the muscle becomes stronger and a little bit bigger. 

However, because muscle tissue is more dense than fat, adding a little bit more muscle to your body and decreasing your fat actually makes you look leaner—not bigger. 
A 2010 study from McMaster University found that even when subjects lifted lighter weights, they added as much muscle as those lifting heavy weights. However, the time it takes to reach fatigue with light weights is much longer than the time it takes to reach fatigue with heavier weights. 

?️. To really bulk up, you have to really work with that goal in mind. Bodybuilders spend hours and hours in the gym lifting extremely heavy weights, along with eating a very strict diet that promotes muscle gain. The average person’s workout and diet—especially a calorie-controlled diet—doesn’t’ result in the same effects.

So, if you’re like most people and extra time is a luxury, it makes more sense to go heavy and then go home!

Article credit: Jennipher Walters, Toning vs. Bulking Up: The Real Facts