Body Worry : How to Tune Up for Better Muscle Tone

If you’ve always thought of weight lifting as a worthless activity from a health point of view, please read on.

Though my shoulder injury continues to slow down my gym workouts, my visits to the weight room each week have already brought some dramatic changes in my body and in the way I react to everyday things.

First, my flesh--particularly the flesh of my upper arms and neck--doesn’t sag like it used to. For many years I thought sagging was an inevitable part of getting older, but as I began to lift, the sags began to tighten.

The reason is simple: Tone is simply a partial contraction of muscle. Healthy muscles are always partially contracted. But as most of us get older, we exercise our muscles less, and eventually they sag from lack of use. If you look at your arm right now, for instance, and see flesh hanging from it, don’t blame old age. Blame inactivity.

Regardless of your age, I might add, you can bring back a lot of that tone. According to Dr. Herbert deVries, America’s leading authority on fitness in the aged, sedentary older people usually have the most dramatic changes in strength and body tone once they initiate an exercise regimen.

Your workout doesn’t have to be like mine, either. If you are really a couch potato, using no weights in simple repetitive exercises at home can help tone up your flesh in three to four months.

For instance, squeezing a tennis ball will build tone in your forearm, increase your grip strength and eventually even build muscle there. Simple push-ups against a wall will wake up your chest and triceps muscles. Sitting with your back firmly against a chair back or wall and lifting your legs slowly and then lowering them will help bring tone back to your abdominal and hip muscles.

Anything that makes your muscles work harder will bring your tone back. And getting tone back means you are going to get your strength back--the second important benefit of my workouts.

At the beginning of my remake I ran out of energy faster than you can make up an excuse not to exercise. And though I didn’t realize it then, having energy is probably the most important ingredient in having a good attitude about living. When you feel up, you feel energetic. When you are depressed, you feel the opposite. Building up your energy does more to improve your mood than anything else.

Today, for example, when I realized that pain would keep me from lifting really heavy weights, I simply switched to light weights, did more repetitions, then jumped on my bike and pedaled 20 miles. I couldn’t even think 20 miles before I began my remake.

As I pedaled, I watched my formerly flabby leg muscles contract as tightly as any young athlete’s. I spent the rest of my day walking around in biking shorts, flexing my legs when any woman was in sight.

My weight-lifting routine, incidentally, is much less intense than it was in the beginning. Against the advice of all my doctors and coaches, I spent the first few months of my remake working out six days a week for at least three hours each day. My muscles never had a chance to recover from the strain, and my injuries certainly came from that overwork.

Heavy and Light Days

Now I work out in the gym only three days a week, about an hour at each session. I work each of my major muscle groups (chest, shoulders, back, biceps and legs) each day. On Mondays I do a “light” workout: 10 repetitions of a very light weight for three sets. I use an incline bench for most of my chest work, and on Mondays I use only 95 pounds of weight. On Wednesdays, I go “heavy,” about 125 pounds. On Fridays I go “light” again.

I use heavy and light days for all muscle groups but my stomach. Since a ripply belly is so important to hunkdom and since those muscles take to daily workouts, I concentrate on my stomach every day but Sunday, working out at home on the days I don’t go to the gym. Most of the time, I do my David Prowse routine: hundreds of sit-ups, leg raises and scissors. Some of the time I wimp out and simply do 100 sit-ups and 100 leg raises.

My body is changing shape, and I love that; more important, the tone of my flesh and the strength of my muscles are changing. Those two things bring me energy, the most important thing. So much energy, that I’ve decided I’m brave enough to strip for you next time. It’s time for you to rate my hunk factor.

Progress Report

Beginning 31st Week Waist: 43 inches 34 1/2 inches Right biceps: 12 3/4 inches 12 7/8 inches Flexed: 13 inches 13 3/4 inches Weight: 201 pounds 173 pounds Height: 6’ 1” Blood pressure: 128/68 118/60 Pulse: 64 60 Bench press: 55 140 Hunk factor: .00 .38