Lean muscle... as opposed to what??
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MrsT1610
Posts: 24 Member
Struggling to understand / not be annoyed by the concept of "building lean muscle". As opposed to what?? Building chubby muscles?
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
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Replies
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I think it should be lean body mass not lean muscle...but I may be wrong...
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From what I understand, when people talk about "lean muscle" they really mean"adding muscle without fat" and I think that hard to do without being on drugs. Goes hand-in-hand with "toning" aka "showing muscles without the pesky layer of fat hiding them".1
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Fat muscle?
It should just be "muscle", but about a decade ago someone wishing to get more people out to a pilates class (or maybe a pure barre class) thought that women would respond well to the idea that they could possibly somehow create "long lean muscles". And it stuck.
They created this illusion that somehow a person who is 5'6" with naturally wide hips could attend these pilates class and emerge at the end of 10 weeks looking like a 5'10" model with narrow hips and long, long legs.7 -
Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.3
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Maybe they meant lean mass?1
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Here it all the time "I want to build lean muscle" ..I interpret it as building muscle..
Maybe they mean lean mass ? I doubt it.0 -
It's a misdirected sentence because as the OP has implied, muscle is just muscle. The amount of fat accumulated while building muscle is what concerns people and keep body fat down just requires a smaller surplus of calories.
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I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.1
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I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.
Building cardiac muscle is very possible. Just ask Andreas Munzer...oh wait, he's dead. Dude's heart weighed like twice what a normal human's does when he croaked. Dat PED stack...0 -
Struggling to understand / not be annoyed by the concept of "building lean muscle". As opposed to what?? Building chubby muscles?
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
it usually means that someone wants to put on muscle while minimizing fat gains..
I agree that it is a ridiculous statement as muscle = muscle ..it is not lean, fatty, etc, it is muscle.2 -
Fat muscle?
It should just be "muscle", but about a decade ago someone wishing to get more people out to a pilates class (or maybe a pure barre class) thought that women would respond well to the idea that they could possibly somehow create "long lean muscles". And it stuck.
They created this illusion that somehow a person who is 5'6" with naturally wide hips could attend these pilates class and emerge at the end of 10 weeks looking like a 5'10" model with narrow hips and long, long legs.
I honestly think this is the root of the issue. "Lean muscle" is a marketing term. I think it implies that you're going to build the type of muscle ballet dancers have, as opposed to the type of squat, bulging muscles people envision when they think of bodybuilding. Sadly for those of us whose natural state is short and squat, that's not how it works, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it to work like that.2 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.
The reason Kobe beef is so marbled is because they give the cows beer to drink while massaging them.
If you drink a six pack while lifting you'll build super big phat marbled muscles in half the time it takes to build skinny lean muscle.
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Hawaiian_Iceberg wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.
The reason Kobe beef is so marbled is because they give the cows beer to drink while massaging them.
If you drink a six pack while lifting you'll build super big phat marbled muscles in half the time it takes to build skinny lean muscle.
And youll be expensive and delicious?6 -
Lean body mass (LBM) includes all body tissue other than fat, including bones, organ and vascular tissue, tendons, ligaments, etc. and muscle.
Muscle mass is estimated at about 30-40% of total body mass including fat but there is no precise way of measuring muscle mass w/o special instruments, which is why most commerial BF measurement techniques only differentiate bet BF and LBM.
DXA scans however can also separate out the weight and density of bone tissue. That's what it was originally designed to do and was only later adopted commercially as another method for measuring BF.0 -
I think when you read "lean muscle" in the forums...it's mostly posted by women that really mean: "I want to have visible muscles, but not giant muscles...like a professional, male bodybuilders."
That's how I interpret that phrase.2 -
deputy_randolph wrote: »I think when you read "lean muscle" in the forums...it's mostly posted by women that really mean: "I want to have visible muscles, but not giant muscles...like a professional, male bodybuilders."
That's how I interpret that phrase.
This is how I take it. New people, especially women, tend to think that the moment they pick up a weight, they are going to look like Arnold. But it definitely doesn't hep when you have crap like they say in yoga/pilates inferring that it gives long lean muscles... like you have a choice of changing muscle shape by stretching.1 -
I feel like it's a marketing term that is mostly aimed toward women -- sort of like "toning." It's a coded way of saying "you're not going to look all scary like those freaky bodybuilders." I don't necessarily think it's worth correcting people, because either they're very new to lifting and will soon learn that muscles are awesome, or they'll never believe that looking at weights won't make you explode and it's a waste of your time to argue with them.1
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I think it's just a redundant fitness marketing term...there are many.1
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Subtle OP... reeeaaaall subtle.0
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Somehow, the speakers of "lean muscle" don't find "fast twitch" or "slow twitch" muscle to be as impressive.0
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