Some people say that there is NO such thing as "toning" your muscles. From my experience when I workout, gradually I begin to see increases in size AND visibilty. Wouldnt this mean it is toning?? I am just wondering if there are any completely proven toning exercises. And dont tell me losing weight is part of it because I have like 0 body fat.

Losing weight or bodyfat is part of it. Thats why when you do "toning" exercises you do a higher number of reps.....so you lose more body fat. Of course you have to have the muscles underneath in order for them to show.

Toning seems to be an extremely subjective term, but in reality there is building muscle or losing fat. Toning seems to be a chickified hybrid of the two, but if you have any muscle to begin with, it only really serves as aerobic activity to drop fat and _maintain_ the muscle tone you have. If you want more visible muscularity, you need to build the muscles. If standard weightless moves aren't cutitng it, pick up some dumbells. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins

well um, I am a guy...............lol, what I mean by toning is like what gymnasts have, specifically MALE gymnasts. There arms are big, but they are insane like a lot of bodybuilders.They look like they are flexing constantly. How do they get that? Is it the training with their own body weight.

A lot of them lift also. Working with your own body weight is still very good, though. Like the guys that do the rings... one routine alone is a grueling upper body workout. They look ripped all the time because they are very very lean. Look at the amount of cardio they get in. They ptactice their routines for hours a day in addtiton to whatever lifting they do (if any). And the only time you see most of them is on TV when they are doing their routines, so their muscles are pumped.
btw.. I didn't mean to imply that you were a chick. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/tongue.gif "Toning" is just more often used with women so they don't think they are building big scary muscles.

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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins

Ditto on the chickified.

And I'm a chick.

We use the words "toning" because most women are erroneously paranoid that they will "get big" if they use their muscles, and they have an unfounded fear of lifting weights, thereby focusing their attention almost exclusively on cardio. Therefore using the term "tone" implies working their muscles with weights, while not implying getting jacked.

Oh, and btw, when you see the bodybuilders on stage or in magazines, you are seeing what they look like when they are dieted down to 4% body fat. They do NOT walk around looking like that, EVER! In fact they begin a pre-contest (or pre-photo shoot) diet several weeks before just for that one moment. When you see them every day they look nothing like that.