Muscle Toning Exercises: Toning vs Bulking For Women Over 40

Choosing muscle toning exercises is about gaining shape and improving muscle definition, not about bulking up.

The real secret for how to tone your body is to burn fat, lose weight if you're overweight, and strengthen your muscles.

The key to choosing the best muscle toning exercises is to alter your workouts regularly so you don't do the same workout routine day after day.

Mix and match muscle toning exercises, choose a mixture of strength and aerobic (cardiovascular) workouts, and don't forget to eat fat-burning foods.

Use the Perfect Plate method to plan nutritious meals to keep your energy levels high and maintain an ideal weight.

Drink at least 12 cups of fluids daily, get at least seven hours of sleep most nights, and minimize stress.

Keep your body moving throughout the day as often as you can, in addition to participating in planned exercise.

Read on to discover ways to enhance definition using the 10 best muscle-toning exercises for women!

Avoid these common mistakes of muscle building for women over 40!

Toning vs Bulking

Bulking is a way to build muscle mass, increasing the size of muscle fibers and their strength.

Toning also involves building muscle, but the goal of toning is increased muscle definition, not necessarily adding size to your figure.

Building muscle is required for toning too, but toning and bulking exercises are slightly different. For toning, you might do more reps (10-20) rather than lifting heavy with fewer reps.

Different ways you can burn fat and complete muscle-toning exercises include:

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT involves short bursts of high-intensity exercises cycled with lower-intensity bouts. You might choose jogging with sprinting or slow with vigorous swimming or biking.

After warming up, do 30-60 seconds of high-intensity exercise, cycle it with 1-2 minutes of lower-intensity exercise, and repeat the cycle for at least 20 minutes to enhance fat-burning and improve muscle definition.

Strength Training

Strength training is one of the best ways to increase muscle strength and definition. Weightlifting, using your body weight as resistance, or trying resistance bands are ways to enhance toning and fat-burning.

For best results, aim to work each major muscle group at least twice weekly.

Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular workouts, such as swimming, jogging, cycling, and using an elliptical machine, are examples of cardiovascular exercises that burn body fat.

This is especially true when you do them continuously for at least 30 minutes or when completing HIIT.

Fat-Burning Diet

Diet is just as important as muscle toning exercises to maximize muscle definition and reduce body fat.

Control your overall calorie intake, lose weight if you're overweight, and consume fat-burning foods in your meal plan on a regular basis.

For best results, limit or avoid added sugar, refined grains like white bread, processed meats, other highly processed foods, fried foods, sugary drinks, and alcohol.

10 Best Muscle Toning Exercises For Women

Choose from the list of exceptional muscle-toning exercises below, mixing and matching various workouts to achieve superior muscle-sculpting results!

Weighted or Alternating Jumping Lunges

Lunges work your upper and lower legs, as well as your glutes! These exercises are great for toning.

There are a variety of ways to complete lunges.

Carry dumbbells while doing walking lunges (walk forward, backward, or both)!

You might also complete alternating jumping lunges, with or without weights.

To do jumping lunges, begin in a lunge position with your right leg in front of you and your left leg back behind your body.

Jump up in the air, switch the position of your legs, and land in a lunge with your left leg in front and your right leg back behind you.

Complete alternating jumping lunges continuously until you complete at least 10 reps on each side.

Squat Jumps

Squat jumps improve your cardiovascular fitness level in addition to being one of the best muscle-toning exercises.

You can hold dumbbell weights if you'd like to make the exercise more of a challenge or simply use your own body weight as resistance.

Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and get into a squat position with your thighs about parallel to the floor.

Jump up as high as you can and land back down into a squat position.

Repeat these motions continuously at least 10 times, take a break, and complete at least three sets of this exercise.

Rope Jumping

You can burn quite a few calories and tone your muscles by rope jumping.

A 155-pound person expends 421 calories jumping rope at a fast pace for 30 minutes and burns 281 calories jumping at a slower pace for the same amount of time.

There are many ways to jump rope to complete muscle toning exercises.

Jump with both feet at a time, one foot at a time, or alternate the feet that you jump with.

You might jump from side to side, front to back, or jump double time to expend calories at a faster pace.

Swimming

Swimming is a cardiovascular exercise that also adds water resistance to your workout.

It's a high-calorie burner, allowing a 155-pound person to expend about 360 calories in 30 minutes, swimming at a vigorous pace.

Choose freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, side strokes, or other swim strokes to burn fat and tone muscles in your upper body, lower body, and midsection.

Uphill Cardio Workouts

Uphill walking, jogging, cycling, or running are exceptional muscle-toning exercises.

They work different muscle groups than doing cardio workouts on a flat surface.

Find hilly terrain to run, walk, or bike, or bump up the incline on a treadmill to get toned quickly.

Stair Climbing

Climbing stairs using steps in your home or a stair climbing machine is one of the best muscle-toning exercises for your legs and glutes.

In fact, you can burn about 216 calories climbing stairs for 30 minutes if you weigh 155 pounds.

Stair climbing also helps you build muscle, burn fat, and tone up.

Climb stairs for 20-30 minutes (or longer) on certain days of the week, in addition to strength training several times weekly, to sculpt your body.

Plank Jacks and Plank Rows

Planks are exceptional toning exercises as they sculpt your entire body, especially your midsection.

Simply get into a plank position and hold it.

While keeping your legs straight and maintaining the plank position, spread your feet apart and together continuously, like jumping jacks.

To complete plank rows, place a dumbbell in each of your hands before getting into a plank position.

Using your right arm, lift the dumbbell up toward your right armpit and back down.

Using your left arm, lift the other dumbbell up toward your left armpit and back down.

Repeat these motions continuously, at least 10 times with each arm.

Lying Leg Raises

Leg raises are muscle-toning exercises for your abs and legs.

They strengthen your lower midsection, enhance muscle definition, and burn fat.

To complete leg raises, lie down on your back on a floor, mat, or weight bench.

Lift your legs (keep them as straight as possible) up off the floor.

Lower your legs back down toward the floor until they almost touch, and lift them back up.

Complete this down-and-up motion with your legs continuously for about 30-60 seconds.

Aim to do a total of at least three sets of this exercise.

You might also lift your legs off the ground, a couple of inches from the floor, and hold the position as long as you can (keep your legs as straight as possible).

To add an extra challenge to leg raise holds, do up-and-down scissors kicks or out-and-in motions with your legs while keeping them straight.

Burpees

Burpees will get your blood pumping, increase your heart rate, sculpt your muscles, and burn excess fat.

To complete burpees, begin in a standing position.

Then, squat down and get your body into a plank position.

Do a push-up, immediately get back into a standing position, jump up, and move back into your plank position to complete another push-up.

Complete this series of movements continuously for at least 30 seconds.

Squat to Shoulder Press, Curls, Raises, or Kickbacks

Get out a set of dumbbells to complete squat-to-press, squat-to-front or side raises, squat-to-biceps curls, or squat-to-triceps kickbacks.

You might do all of these exercises during the same workout to tighten and tone problem areas.

Simply hold two dumbbells, one in each hand, and stand up straight with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.

Squat down until your thighs are about parallel with the floor, and when you stand back up, complete standing shoulder press, standing biceps curls, front or lateral raises, or triceps kickbacks.

Do at least 2-3 sets of 10-20 repetitions for each exercise.

You might alter the position of your feet during the squats.

For example, you may combine wide-stance squats with shoulder presses or biceps curls and narrow-stance squats with lateral raises, front raises, or triceps kickbacks.

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on muscle toning exercises.