If I had a nickel for the every time someone said they want to get fit, “but just toned not too muscular looking…” I would have a pile of nickels my friend. Let’s be real, it’s usually women who have this concern, and with good cause: the dysfunctional world we live in.
We all have our biases, so I must confess mine: this never happens (someone starts exercising and quickly becomes jacked to the max), but I understand that the fear is real for many people, and I come from the privilege of being a man who doesn’t receive even close to the same social pressure to look a certain way, among other things.
The language of toning has been used in a lot of marketing messaging for decades now, and we are all at least somewhat vulnerable to repeated, pervasive myths. And that’s all there is to it, really. There is no science that supports a difference between toning and building muscle, or that a certain type of training will result in toning and not muscle building. It’s a linguistic trick to suggest that there could be, to get you chasing a ghost for a monthly fee.
Being generous, what we sometimes see is a person who misguidedly starts exercising in earnest, but doesn’t make corresponding improvements to their eating or lifestyle habits (food, sleep, stress), and so maintains or increases their fat levels while gaining some muscle. The dreaded “bulky.”
I spend a lot of time (compared to the average person) parsing marketing language in the fitness space, partly because I too find it so frustrating. One of the ways late stage capitalism keeps us down is by making sure we stay busy arguing with each other about nonsense rather than challenging the system in more impactful ways.
The truth is that toning was a word adopted to attract women to gyms at a time when gyms were male dominated, in a patriarchal culture where women are constantly pressured to do a tight rope walk of meeting a very narrow definition of “attractive,” all in the interest of pleasing men, and with some luck marry into a degree of financial security, since in 2021 women still only make on average $0.80 for every $1.00 a man makes. And of course it’s much worse for women of color.
As I’m sure you know, dear reader, not a lot has changed. But some small but significant things have: we live in a unique era where awareness and activism is building around this and the gross inequality women and people of color experience on so many levels, expectations of physical attractiveness being among them. And some women are challenging it successfully, and some men whose values align with women are becoming allies in the cause for greater justice and equality. Let’s not get too rosy about the prospects, but it’s a start. One thing I know: we’re not going back.
For my part, I hope we can start by calling out these dysfunctional and harmful myths more often, not just for their scientific inaccuracy, but also as one of many overlapping instruments to keep people down and maintain the dysfunctional and harmful status quo. I don’t know about you, but when I sense that I am not only being misled but manipulated, it pisses me off in a way that is more proactive than despairing.
Let’s continue the work, together. Let’s provide examples of more healthy ways of being. It can start with the language we use to talk about ourselves and our own health goals. And continue with the way we counsel with kindness and respond empathically to those who have been misinformed. And continue with recognizing our biases, especially our privileged ones, men. Not because we got it so good, but because it’s all so unjust, and not even about us individually. And continue to the way we empower and uplift women, hear their trauma, give them the mic, and encourage them to move forward in healthful ways with it.
Coach Mauricio
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail