"Tightening" up muscles

[steve singh]

"Tightening up" - keep hearing this phrase, particularly related to abdominal muscles.

I thought muscle was just muscle - can they really be 'tightened up' through exercise?

[B3njamin]

You can make muscles bigger through exercise and smaller through atrophy. When you increase muscle size and decrease body fat, muscles appear far more defined and/or sinewy. When muscle mass is kept constant but body fat is lost, muscles appear more prominent and 'toned' despite not being bigger.

Certain ways of training can increase strength or endurance-to varying extents-more so than size and vice versa due to the predominant targeting of either slow twitch or fast twitch muscles, if such a goal is desired.

'Tightening' is therefore a bit vague - if you lose fat you'll notice ab muscles more, if you target training to the muscles around your core you will notice an increase in strength predominantly in this area, as well as minor increases in other areas. Whether these outcome constitute muscle tightening is less clear however, the muscle itself won't physically be any 'tighter'.

[steve singh]

Thanks Benjamin - tallys with my understanding.

[goldblum]

Certain people in your gym are talking bks.

[Otto]

Toight....like a toiger!

[/Goldmember]


It's just one of those terms like 'ripped' - I think it's referring to the tightness of the skin over the muscles?? Maybe... ah well - lower fat, bigger muscles..... pretty much what everyone in the gym wants to achieve anyway.

[RemainAllHoof]

I thought "tight" might mean when you're pumped and the muscle is still hard. You could have big, well-defined muscles but not be tight by virtue of the muscles not having been worked for a week?

[alfa pint]

I always thought it was just when the muscles were a bit stiff a day or two after hard work e.g. tight hamstring after a run.