Tips on toning/strength training-without gaining.

grover0ca

Hoping someone here can steer us in the right direction..

My son is wanting to focus on toning/strength training but not gaining weight.

He fights competively in taekwondo so needs to maintain his weight to stay in his weight class so he wants to be careful here and go about things the right way.

He is pretty lean already, about 145 lbs, 5'11, bmi is 19.5 (perfect build for tkd). He trains 4x a week (8 hours total) for taekwondo (mix of sparring/stepping/cardio etc) but now wants to focus on abs/core strength/ upper body strength and get that awesome looking muscle tone! He has access to his university gym for the additional work outs he will do.

He just joined MFP and is ready to focus on his nutritional needs to help with his goals.

So any tips/suggestions or websites that would be a good starting point for him to achieve what he wants without gaining weight or bulking up?

sblowes

LOTS of reps, not a lot of weight. That's what I'm doing, because I'm really trying to lost weight, but I still want to do strength training.

tross0924

I'm guessing that at 5' 11" and 145 lbs he's got a fairly low body fat percentage. Lower weight and higher reps will help tone, but if he wants that "awesome looking muscle tone" he's probably going to have to increase the size of the muscles. Which might be possible to do without gaining weight if he's got a little fat to loose. If he's, oh say, 10% or under it will be really hard to attain "the look" without also gaining some muscle mass and therefore weight.

grover0ca

I am not sure what his body fat % is..that is something he will need to try and figure out.

Thanks for the info so far..it is helpful!

tross0924

Knowing his body fat percentage would definately be helpful. Doesn't have to be super accurate. There's a bunch of scales that run about $40 that will give you a decent estimate.

Basically though, if he's already fairly lean and fit, he may have to sacrifice his weight class for a look. If he's fit but could loose a few pounds it can be done, but will be difficult.

You can check out bodybuilding.com for some more info. They've got some forums that might give you some better ideas.

grover0ca

He is pretty lean already...I believe it said for his healthy weight range he could drop a few pounds-but looking at him I am not sure where it would come from!

Okay..so I will let him know he needs to figure out his body fat %...and thanks for the forum info.

amysj303

bump