Body Toning Factors

Whenever we watch our TV sets and see all those celebrities with their pretty faces and toned bodies, we always get green with envy and wonder what they did to make their body to turn out that way.

Every person was born with different body structures. Some are innately thin, while some are naturally chubby. Nevertheless, the choice of having a toned body lies on you. Defining a “toned” body not only means firming our muscles but also losing some excess weight. Sometimes when people hear the word “toning”, they only think of firm and defined muscles. Well, it’s not just that. If you want to have your muscles defined, then you’d better lose some of your body fat!

Before you start your toning, you have to lose your body fat first. Losing these fats means regular exercise including the strength training for your muscle groups and a proper diet.

The Hard Part

For every person, they have some particular areas that are difficult for them to work on. Some suggest doing spot training, but in truth, you cannot spot-tone a specific area and immediately make your problem area disappear.

According to a poll survey, the common body areas that are hardest to tone are the upper arms, hips, thighs and stomach. For women, these areas naturally contain adipose tissues (body fats) to protect them during their pregnancy. Also, considering our usual body mechanics, the muscles on those body areas are seldom used and easy to accumulate body fats.

Having saggy arms is one of the top complaints by women (may it be younger or older). Triceps is one difficult muscle to tone up but it can be done by regular strength exercises. Another challenging body area to tone up is the hips and thighs. As mentioned before, woman have extra natural body fats there, but you can lose some of those body fats by doing regular cardio exercises and isometric movements to tone up those muscles.

Many people are doing crunches to turn those saggy stomachs into perfect abs. But doing crunches alone is not enough. Saggy stomachs are due to the fat accumulation in the area. So you have to cut down the fat first before toning it up. Acquiring the perfect abs requires lots of time and effort, but it is worth it.

The Easy Part

Everything has its counterparts. If there are hard areas to tone up, then there must be other areas that are very easy to tone.

If you are having some issues with a saggy buttocks, then get to work on them. Though it is one of the top complaints of both men and women, the buttocks is one of the easiest body parts to tone up. One of the largest muscles in our body, the gluteus muscle, can be found in buttocks. Because the large muscle is used every day, this body part easily responds to some toning exercises.

Another body area that is easy to tone up is the lower legs and calf. Since we mainly use our legs to do our work every day, it is easy to tone up these leg muscles. By simply raising your legs or stepping up and down the stairs, you can firm up the muscles in your legs.

The Factors

There are lots of factors that influence a person’s ability to tone up his body. First, we have to consider the person’s bone structure and body proportion. If you have big bones and large body proportions, you’ll naturally look heavy. You can make changes by slimming and firming the body areas but you cannot considerably change the body we were born with.

Another factor that is involved is the age. As we grow old, our muscles gradually shrink, decreasing the rate of the calories we burn. Because of this, the fat also gradually accumulates to the various parts of our frame and tends to go to the mid-section, thighs and buttocks.

Diet and exercise is also important when toning up. Many people get the wrong idea and think that skipping meals is the way to decrease their food intake. You don’t really have to do that. You just have to lower your carbohydrates and increase your proteins and you’ll do fine.