Toning VS muscle building

[The_stray_cat]

Hello! So I've been working out for a good while now and i notice that muscles would hurt while i finish sets but no burn the next day. That usually means it isn't growing right? I feel like if theres no pain the morning after then it was a waste of time. However when i go a lot heavier with the weights I feel the pain the next few days but then i heard that it will get bigger.

So when you want to tone, should you feel pain the next morning?
And when you gain muscle, should you feel pain te next morning?

[Onepoundofhealth]

Hi there,

Muscle building requires using weights that are 70-80% of 1 maxrep in a range of 8-12 reps.
So let's say if you can do just one bicep curl with 20lb DB, you would use 15lb DB for starting to work on muscle building.

Toning would be with 60-70% of maxrep and going in a range of 12-20 reps so you would use 12 lbs DB or less.

Muscle soreness occurs usually when you switch routines or exercises, progressing with your weights or if you don't stretch properly.
It doesn't necessarily mean that your muscles are not working enough if you don't feel pain but rather your muscles are adjusting to exercise and you're building strength and endurance.

Hope that helps:)

[Boss Man]

What you're talking about is DOMS, (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). I can indicate a good workout, or over training, but no DOMS does not mean you're training poorly. I have almost never had it and there's probably quite a significant number of people who haven't either.

So don't worry about not getting it. As I mentioned in a recent post to you, at you're age, hitting 95% of failure lift is not something you should be doing, so going a little lower on the weight therefore might stop DOMS happening, but won't mean you're struggling to improve.

However in let's say 12 months from now, when your body could cope with a little more impetus, you might find you still didn't get it, but that wouldn't mean you were getting a bad workout.

To be honest if you get physical progress without DOMS then good for you, as I've had it about 2-3 times in life and I'm grateful it's not a regular thing .

[The_stray_cat]

Is there a way to isolate the muscles when working out? Like can you try to tone legs while build muscle in the glutes? Or no?

[Boss Man]

Yes, building glut muscle and leg muscle at the same time is possible as you can do things like Squats, lunges, bulgarian split squats, side lunges, front lunges and squats can include dumbbell squats, free bar squats, smith squats going regular or sumo style and using either a 12'oclock foot position or a 10-2 foot position and dumbbell squats can be done with 2 dumbbells either by the sides or on the shoulders, or done with one dumbbell between the legs utilising a sumo style.

Spot training is very difficult, although I've heard one or two theories that certain areas can be trained, but it's very hard. There is a glute exercise involving cables and utilising a stiff legged technique that will mostly hit the glutes, but even that could have a secondary effect on one or more muscles.

Though certainly you can hit the glutes and one or more leg muscles at once; the exercise done dictating which muscles you train.