Want Muscle Tone Instead of Muscle Mass?

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 Do You Need to Do For Muscle Tone?

Remember, your goal for muscle tone is to avoid damaging the muscles. If you get sore the following day, back off a bit the next time that you work those same muscles. I like to do 3-4 sets of anywhere between 3-10 reps for muscle tone. I chose 2 exercises per body part.

How Many Reps in Each Set?

Very few people understand how effective low reps are for muscle tone. Low reps create harder contractions and over time, your muscle will display better tone. Feel free to include medium to high reps, but make sure you don't neglect heavier low rep training as well. Gaining strength at a low body fat level is a great way to look ripped!

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

This is an overlooked tip that will quickly accelerate your ability to increase tone in a worked muscle. 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. Again...you want to avoid muscle damage, otherwise you will over-train the muscle if you work it soon. Another problem with working a damaged muscle it that it won't contract as hard, so the workout will have less toning benefits.

Do NOT Train to Failure or Use Forced Reps When Going for Muscle Tone

If you do a set to failure you are essentially "training your muscle to fail". This induces a large amount of damage, which is great for muscle mass but bad for muscle tone. Training for tone is similar to training for strength. Elite power-lifters rarely train to failure for the reason stated above. The problem is that your muscle will not contract as hard the following set. You want hard contractions when going for tone, so don't train to failure and don't even think of doing forced reps.

Here is Common Mass Building Split Routine

The "3 day split" is a common routine for muscle mass because it works well. 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 great thing here is that since you are working only a few body parts in each workout, you can focus on blitzing each muscle group. You can really do a high volume of lifts for each muscle group which is the key to mass.

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: So you should have a good idea on how to setup a great workout routine. Remember, if you are going for tone, keep the volume of lifting low and work each muscle frequently. Since your time in the weight room should be brief, spend the extra time hitting cardio hard to burn off all that excess body fat to reveal your toned muscles.