Dr Mel Siff Blog

<< What are the possible physiological (muscular) changes that occur in the
development of tone and/or definition. I realize they are not synonymous.

I would like to hear opinions and research based fact. >>

*** Muscle definition tends to increase as bodyfat decreases – the less fat
there is over and within the muscle, the more ‘defined’ and obvious the
muscle appears. Muscle ‘tone ‘ (or tension) has to do with the regular
involvement of the muscles in adequately strenuous physical effort. To be
entirely accurate, one would refer to ‘resting tone’ (which has a lot to do
with the connective tissues in the muscle complex) and active tone or tension
that is generated by muscle contraction.

All too often, we have fitness fans wanting to ‘do weights’ to increase
muscle tone but not muscle bulk, but they are completely unaware of what
‘tone’ really is. What they are doing is confusing a toned look with an
increase in muscle tone (tension), so that they probably are more preoccupied
with improving muscle definition than tone. Ideally, an optimal combination
of both would be necessary for improving physical appearance, but not to the
extent that one loses too much essential bodyfat or gains too much muscle
bulk that, paradoxically, may decrease one’s relative strength and become a
type of ‘muscular adiposity’.

There is some research which shows that there seems to be an optimal level of
hypertrophy for any individual in terms of metabolic and mobility efficiency,
so that it may be that the belief that there may be such a thing as excessive
hypertrophy is supported by research (and theory, as can be confirmed by the
application of what is known as ‘dimensional analysis’ in physics). In other
words, one may refer to two types of overmass: excessive bodyfat and
excessive muscle.

Dr Mel C Siff