Getting Ripped vs Getting Strong

 

         When you speak to those looking to pack on a lot of muscle you’ll usually find a common underlying theme. Most focus simply on getting “swole”, looking as big as possible compared to their fellow man. Everyone works out for different reasons. The benefits of fitting in a good amount of walking, at-home workouts, and general fitness motivation are good. While some go for weightlifting and a variety of machines to achieve their “gains. It’s clear that certain styles of fitness have championed the term “tone” to mean lengthening, leaning out, and strengthening your muscles. All the while not “bulking.”

 

“First, a muscle has an origin and an insertion. In other words, they attach (via tendons to the bone) at fixed points. Most adults who don’t stretch much have compressed spines. Because of this, when they begin stretching more often it’s likely that the spine will decompress. If sufficiently stimulated, a muscle fiber does one thing, and one thing only it grows.

 

This is how your muscles getting worked up. “Intensity—not speed of movement, number of reps, or amount of weight used—is what controls whether a motor unit fires. Once it is sufficiently stimulated (or reaches its excitation threshold), it fires. And if that happens enough, the muscle visibly grows.” In short, when you work out at a certain level of intensity, your muscles respond by breaking down and rebuilding, therefore growing slightly. Regardless of the type of strength workout. That isn’t to say that you’ll be getting major gains after a few days in the gym. While phrases like “gaining” and “building muscle” tend to scare many, their reasons are completely invalid. It takes serious amounts of time, effort, and calculation to make those intense gains.

 

So really, lifting weights a few times a week can strengthen your muscles to the same effect that a pilates class would. But bear in mind, how much and how quickly your muscles react to working out is completely unique to you. “Of course this gets tricky. The extent of that growth will vary based on a number of factors, so not everyone will respond the same. That’s why two people can do the same routine and not look the same

                                                                 

 

                                                                       If you have body fat can you still get toned?

 

        The answer to this questions depends on how you define toned. This is where most of our questions regarding this whole thing came to. Whether you ask trainers, physical therapists, or do a quick Google search, chances are you’ll never find one definitive definition. Considering we’re still talking about the popular use of the word tone “If the layer of fat over a muscle is great enough, it will obscure the muscle and there won’t be tone or definition. If that same person, with no change in muscle, were to decrease their body fat, they’d have greater definition.” So if you consider a toned bod to simply be one with defined muscles, maintaining a low level of body fat (likely by way of a healthy diet) is key. 

All in all, a large part of being “toned” or not is out of our hands. “If you want to increase tone/definition, you need to affect body composition. Muscles aren’t that smart or programmable,”

 

While you can change the amount of body fat and muscle you have, there’s no way of changing the amount of bone, tissue, and water. But, hope for firm, defined muscles isn’t all lost. It all comes down to working out and eating right for your body type. That, along with minimizing body fat so your toned muscles can show through, is key. When most people have that moment that they need to start exercising and eating right, their primary motivation is usually to look good, and looking good usually means being lean and “ripped.” They want the hot beach bod with abs you can grate cheese on.

 

But they also want to be big and strong. Really strong. They’re at the gym six days a week, working out a different body part each day. They drink their protein shake within the magical one-hour window after working out so their muscles absorb as much of it as possible. For a few weeks, these people see some progress. They’re getting a bit leaner and they’re starting to see some muscle definition. They can even bench a bit more than they could before they started. But they want to get even leaner. So they cut calories, eliminate carbs, and throw in some HIIT training at the end of each workout.

And leaner they do get. Muscle definition is at its peak. Six-pack abs have been achieved. But they’re not getting strong . In fact, they’re getting weak .

That 225-lb bench press that was within reach a few weeks ago now is miles away. Weight that was once easy to lift, now feels like a metric ton.

I’m going to lay some hard truth on you here: Despite what the internet or that dude-bro at the gym might say, you cannot get both super lean and super strong at the same time. They are goals that are diametrically opposed to each other. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying you can’t be shredded and strong. There are lots of men out there who have 10% body fat and can deadlift and squat a ton. You just can’t work on getting ripped and strong at the same time. Increasing muscle density and size is what makes you big and strong. So to get big and strong, you need to pack on more muscle.

 

        But here is the problem. Muscle is caloricallyx expensive. It requires a lot of energy to create. To create that new muscle, you need to consume more calories than you’re expending. How much more? More than you probably think. The biggest mistake most men make when they set down the path of gainz is that they eat the same amount of food they were eating before they were training. Intense weight training puts a lot of stress on the body. To fully recover, you need to provide your body the fuel to do so. That means you need a sufficient amount of calories that come from protein, carbs, and fat. If you train and provide your body with enough calories, muscle mass and strength will increase. But you’re also going to put on some body fat. To get ripped, lean, shredded, etc. you need to shed body fat. Shedding body fat requires you to consume fewer calories than you’re expending so that your body uses your fat stores for energy. But here’s the rub: just as you can’t put on muscle mass without putting on some body fat, you can’t reduce body fat without reducing some muscle mass. When you’re in a caloric deficit, your body not only uses fat for energy, it also breaks down muscle tissue for the nutrients it needs to keep your physiological systems running. As muscle tissue cannibalizes, muscle mass and strength go down.

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                 

 

                          This is why you can’t get big and strong while you’re trying to get lean

       

        Getting big and strong requires excess calories, while getting lean requires a caloric deficit. You’ve got to pick a goal at the exclusion of the other. Get big and build lean muscle first, then worry about loosing fat. Because getting bigger and stronger is harder to do and takes more time than it does to lose body fat. Having more muscle mass and strength provides a much bigger return on investment than just losing body fat. When you increase muscle mass and strength, losing body fat becomes easier later on. You’ll be able to work harder during those HIIT sessions when you’re trying to cut, thanks to that increased strength. Increased muscle mass leads to a whole host of hormonal changes that help speed up fat loss, while maintaining muscle. So if you’re just getting started with training, make getting stronger your first priority. It will pay off later on. If you’re really skinny, you’re going to need to eat a crap ton of high-quality food. Eat more than you think you’d need. Whole milk, whey protein, and peanut butter will be your friend here. And yes, you’re going to put on some chub. You may even get “skinny fat.” That’s okay. Remind yourself that fat is easy to lose, while muscle is hard to gain, but pays off down the road. With all the new muscle mass you gained in the process of bulking, you’re going to look jacked when you get around to shedding that fat. Now if you’re fat, and we’re talking about 25%+ body fat, you can actually reduce calories and still make significant strength and muscle gains when your first start training because, well, you’ve got a lot of energy stores to work with. You shouldn’t eat like a rabbit or else your performance is going to suffer. You want to consume about 250 calories less than what you usually eat to maintain your current weight. Consider reduce your carbs completely and go heavy on protein and good fats (like you find in coconut oil, nuts, and avocados). If you’re dropping about a half inch around your waist each week while maintaining your body weight (because you’re increasing muscle mass), and you’re not noticing any decrease in performance then you’re on the right track.

 

        Follow a barbell training regimen. Nothing packs on muscle and adds strength like doing compound barbell lifts. At the end of each workout, do 10-15 minutes of HIIT cardio. You’re not going to notice dramatic changes in your body. In fact, you may gain some weight and your clothes may fit around your chest a bit tighter due to increased muscle mass. But keep measuring that waist. If that keeps going down, you’re good.

Once you get below 20% body fat, you can start upping the calories a bit to put the muscle gains in overdrive.

 

        The bottom line here is that getting lean (or “ripped”) and getting strong are two different goals that can ultimately be achieved at the same time, but can’t be trained for at the same time. Some guys just want to be strong, and don’t care about aesthetics, which is why you often see powerlifters who don’t look “in shape” or “ripped”, but are still strong. On the other side of the spectrum, you’ve got guys who just want to consistently look good in a tank top, are lean and ripped, and don’t care that they’re not pulling in huge numbers on their lifts. Finally, there are guys who want to get as strong as possible, but also sometimes want to shed their power belly, and they work on these respective goals in phases: first bulking up, and then leaning out. Whichever category you fall into, just understand what you’re aiming for, and what’s possible when. Stay determined and stay dedicated and you will reach your goal.