Podcast 8

Getting Strong Without Getting Bulky

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SHOW NOTES

Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson break down the science of strength training and discuss why you don’t have to worry about getting bulky from exercise, and why strength training is the most effective way to get that toned, lean body you always wanted.

• Will two 20-minute workouts a week help someone get toned? According to the scientific definition, toneness refers to the level of tension in a muscle at rest, but most people refer to being toned as being lean. In that regard, strength training will absolutely help you get leaner and build firm muscles.
• One misconception about toning is around spot reduction. Often, when people talk about toning their body they are talking about making a particular area of their body leaner by targeting it with exercise, but that isn’t how the process works. Effective strength training is about getting whole body results that impact your metabolism and decrease body fat throughout the whole body.
• Toning is the result of lean muscle tissue being added in the body with a decrease in the amount of body fat that may be hiding. To get the toning results you want, the best way is to combine good whole food nutrition and whole effort exercise.
• Will strength training at the Exercise Coach result in big, bulky muscles? People want better muscles, not necessarily bigger muscles and lucky for them, the majority of people won’t build large muscles even if they try. Genes and the expression of myostatin limits the amount of muscle mass that will grow.
• The longer a muscle is, the bigger and thicker that it will grow. Most bodybuilders that you see have muscles that are naturally predisposed to growing larger. This means that most people, especially women,  don’t have to worry about getting too bulky.
• Strength training is the most important thing you can do for health, longevity, quality of life, and reducing body fat. Whole effort strength training is the best way to achieve the best body leanness, definition, or tone that you can.
• “Biologically speaking, to be able to survive an encounter with a lion that wants to eat you, you need a body that is lean enough to be fast and strong enough that it has the endurance to run away. This describes the state that our bodies want to be in.
• There isn’t any evolutionary benefit to growing large muscles because it takes a lot of energy and resources to maintain them. Our bodies are better off with building stronger and better muscles, while not necessarily getting bigger in the process.
• Amy reads a testimonial from a 73 year old woman sharing how she has seen improved muscle definition and tone from her time and sessions at the Exercise Coach.
• Today, more than ever, we need to maintain our physical and mental health for our overall well-being. The workouts at the Exercise Coach change everything for the clients that enjoy them.

I don’t want people to be led astray thinking that, well, strength training is going to make my muscles big and bulky and give me a look that I don’t want. We completely understand from working with people for many years that they really want better muscles, not necessarily bigger muscles.

Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast. I’m Amy Hudson, and today my co -host Brian Sagan and I will be continuing our Ask the Exercise Coach series, where we answer the most common questions we get about strength training and how it leads to an overall healthier quality of life. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, hopefully you’ve begun to learn a little bit about why strength training is a game changer for our health, for our fitness, and for our longevity. However, when we meet people who are new to strength training, one question we hear is, I’d like to tone up, but I’m worried strength training will bulk me up. So today we are addressing this common question, and hopefully it will provide some clarity for you. So first, let’s address the person who asks if two 20 -minute workouts a week will help them get toned.

Brian, how are you?

I’m doing great, Amy. Let’s talk about toning. Will two 20 -minute workouts a week help someone get toned? Absolutely, but we really need to talk about this term tone. We need to talk about toning. First of all, there is the term tone or tonus, which is really more of a scientific term that refers to the tension in a muscle at rest the residual tension in a muscle at rest so it refers to the firmness of a muscle but in common parlance what most people mean when they say tone toning or

up is that they actually want to achieve better body leanness, they want to look more toned, or they want to look leaner. And so normally, they’re poking or pinching something on their body or waving it around saying I want to remove this. And that’s what they mean when they say toning. And And so we’ll go ahead and go with that and use it in that way. But we can achieve both through 20 minute strength training workouts, we can firm up those muscles. And we can actually help people reduce body fat and look leaner, or as they say, more toned.

But it really helps to understand how that process actually works. And it’s super important to steer people away from the concept of spot reduction. A lot of times when people talk about toning up, they are cluing you into the fact that they believe if they work certain muscles on their body, that the body fat in that same area of the body will be reduced and they’ll look more toned. And that is not the case. So through effective strength training, we’re actually trying to get good whole body results that impact someone’s metabolism and their hormones overall so that they lose body fat throughout their whole body. That’s what the strength training is all about.

That is that’s super helpful. So to summarize what you’re saying is toning is the result of lean muscle tissue being added in the body with a decrease of the amount of body fat that may be hiding it.

That’s exactly it.

Yes.

And to see the toning or the definition that you want to see, it’s really ideal and necessary to combine good whole food nutrition with the consistent performance of what we call whole effort exercise or whole effort strength training. These two combined bring about the best change in the visible muscle definition that someone has a loss in body fat and an increase in muscle tissue to bring about improved body leanness and definition.

Perfect. So that actually leads us into the next question. I know there are listeners out there who hear the idea of adding lean muscle tissue and immediately think of bulking up, like a bodybuilder you may see on a magazine.

So Brian, will the strength training workout available at The Exercise Coach lead to bulking up? And again, I emphasize this because once again, I don’t want people to be led astray, especially women. I don’t want to be led astray thinking that well, strength training is going to make my muscles big and bulky and give me a look that I don’t want. We completely understand from working with people for many years that they really want better muscles, not necessarily bigger muscles. They want to be healthier, have more energy, and they want to look more defined.

And fortunately, we also know that the vast majority of people would not build exceedingly large muscles, even if that’s what they tried to do.

Now, why is that? Sure. There’s two things I like to explain when I’m answering the question about bulking up and why the vast majority of people just won’t. I like to talk about genes and geometry. And so first of all, genes or the genetic expression of one gene in particular and this gene is called myostatin.

The expression of myostatin actually limits just how big someone’s muscles grow and in normal individuals have a lot of my myostatin expression and so that limits how big their muscles get. It’s very interesting if you just look online at an image of if you search myostatin mice or myostatin bully whippet you’ll see these animals that grow really large muscles because they don’t have this gene myostatin. So most of us have plenty of it and it’s going to limit how big our muscles get no matter how how consistently and how hard we work them. And then geometry is about the length of your actual muscles. The longer a muscle is, the bigger and thicker it can grow. And so when you see that bodybuilder, that individual with really big muscles, they’ve got two things going on.

One, they don’t have much myostatin expressing itself genetically.

And two, they have really long muscle bellies, which means that their muscles have a great geometric potential to grow larger. Wow, that is really fascinating. And super encouraging, really, for most of us, especially women who might be concerned about bulking up. You’re saying our bodies just don’t have the genetics for that to happen. But what our bodies do have is the programming to add strength while decreasing body fat as a result of whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition.

Is that right? That’s right. And it’s the most important thing you can do for health and longevity, quality of life, and in terms of the contribution of exercise to reducing body fat and so that’s why we just want to make sure that people know that they want to work their muscles effectively through whole effort strength training for whole body effects and not to worry about their muscles getting too large.

You want to build as much strength and muscle as possible to have the the the best life you can and to achieve the best body leanness definition or tone that you can. And think about this from like a survival perspective. In order to survive and be able to outrun, let’s say a lion trying to devour you, your body must be lean enough to be fast, yet strong enough to have the endurance to run away.

So that explains in a way and an analogy why this is the state that our bodies most want to be in. That’s right. Biologically speaking, there’s nothing beneficial about having super large muscles. We need muscles that are strong and healthy enough to do what we need to do in life. But in reality, since this muscle tissue requires a lot of resources just to keep it up, to keep it alive and defeated every day, we actually our bodies are better off with building stronger and better muscles.

and not necessarily having those muscles get really big in that process. I’d like to share a testimonial actually if I could from a client and who is actually 73 years old talking about how she’s seen improved muscle tone.

Is that okay if I share that, Brian?

Please do. Okay, this is from Phyllis and she says, the exercise coach is the perfect fit for me. So happy to find the right place for me at my age. and my daily life just 20 minutes twice a week. When I leave the exercise coach upon completion of a session, I feel both mentally and physically good about myself, knowing that each 20 minute session twice a week is what I need to do. The metabolic comeback challenge parentheses me adding, that’s the combination of whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition.

It’s a program we have available at our studios. Guided me in the right direction to weight loss, along with my increased muscle tone to lose the impossible last 10 pounds that we all want to. In the era of COVID -19, you could not ask for a better workout facility. It is small, well -maintained with high standards of cleanliness and limited participants. Today, more than ever, we need to maintain our physical and mental health for our well -being.

So that’s from Phyllis. Man, congratulations, Phyllis. Great work. And thank you for those kind words. And I think she she nailed it.

Today, more than ever, we need to maintain our physical and mental health for our overall well -being.

Yes. And we’ve heard so many stories just like that over the years and across the country with our locations. And I’m just encouraged by the fact that the muscle definition and fat loss that so many of us want as a result of our exercise program can be delivered in just 20 minutes, twice a week.

That’s all it takes. That’s right. And on top of that, the 20 minute science -based strength training that we do at the exercise coach changes everything. It’s all about fundamentally changing what it takes to get the results that matter most to each individual.

And we certainly enjoy making a difference in this way. I hope you found that encouraging. And I know I’m personally motivated to go in for my next workout. So as always, we appreciate you listening to the strength changes, everything podcast. If you found this episode helpful. we’d love if you’d share it with a friend, subscribe to the podcast, and let us know what you thought.

Again, we will see you next week as we continue the series that we’re in, Ask the Exercise Coach, where we answer the most common questions you have about strength training and how it improves your quality of life. Have a great week and remember, strength changes everything.