The one leg box hop is like a step-up, except with more force.

Step 1: Stand in front of a knee-high box, placing your left foot on top of the box, your right foot on the floor.

Step 2: Drive your body upward by pressing down with your left foot (which is on top of the box.)

Your right foot will come off the ground, and ideally, you’ll spring up off the box a few inches.

The goal is to jump straight up. Don’t veer to either side (which could happen if your core is weak.) It helps to keep your head and torso upright and straight.

Step 3: Land with your feet in the same configuration, i.e. left foot on top of the box and right foot on the ground.

Repeat 10-20 times, then switch legs. (Right foot on top of the box, left foot on the ground.)

One Leg Box Hop video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Plyometrics Exercise Collection.

Many people who take up running and cycling are looking for some good exercise that will help them lose weight and tone their muscles. Hard-core racers might not care about their looks, but I would bet that most recreational cyclists and amateur racers want a nice physique as one of the benefits of their training.

And chances are, no matter what your racing level, you are doing some sort of strength training to improve your performance. (If not, then you should be!)

So you’re probably lifting weights, and as far as physical appearance goes, you’re looking for results that equate to a “toned” physique, rather than getting big and bulky. (You need to maintain that power to weight ratio!)

I’m going to explain how to tone your muscles, rather than get big and bulky, but first, we have to look at what toning even is…

What is Toning?

What is toning anyway? How do you describe it?

The common perception of a toned body is one where you can see dense, defined muscles. In other words, a lean, muscular body.

Think Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club. He is lean and muscular and looks great, but definitely wouldn’t get confused for a bodybuilder with his shirt on.

Muscle Tone: The Basics

So let’s look at how to get toned. In reality, toning is nothing more than losing body fat. As you lose body fat, your muscles stand out much more, which gives you that toned look. It’s as simple as that.

You could also go one step further. By both increasing the size of your muscles and decreasing the amount of fat hiding them, you really get the toned look.

So you don’t actually “tone” the muscle. You just change your muscle to fat ratio, which allows you to see your muscles more easily.

I like to sum it up with this quote from Nate Green in his book, Built for Show: “You can make a muscle bigger or smaller, but you can’t ‘tone’ it.”

There is a more advanced definition of muscle tone (best described in Visual Impact by Rusty Moore, or in Pavel Tsatsouline’s books,) but that doesn’t really matter unless you need extreme toning for a physique contest, so we can skip that today.

Understanding Muscle Growth

What we should discuss though, is muscle growth. There are two main types of muscle growth to become familiar with before trying to tone your muscles. They are:

• Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy – The growth of the fluid in the muscle cells.
• Myofibrillar hypertrophy – The growth of muscle fibers themselves.

The best way to look at it is this – muscle fiber growth (myofibrillar hypertrophy) creates smaller, dense muscles and increases sports performance with minimal, if any, weight gain.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy just makes your muscles look bigger. They might be a bit soft, and there is really no benefit when it comes to sports performance.

Obviously we are going to concern ourselves with the actual muscle fiber growth.

How to Tone Your Muscles

Now it’s time to talk about how to actually tone your muscles. There will be two components here: fat loss as discussed at the beginning of this article, and muscle fiber growth, just discussed in the previous section.

Fat Loss

There are two main sub-components to fat loss: diet and conditioning.

Changing your diet is the fastest way to fat loss. For beginners, look at this fat loss article for the basics. For more advanced techniques, you might want to consider some of the Paleo Diet principles as well as carb cycling and nutrient timing.

Basically, changing up your diet can easily lead to a 500-700 calorie deficit each day, plus allow your body to operate properly.

Your conditioning will come from your running and/or cycling training, which should consist of various sprints and interval workouts.

Muscle fiber growth

Muscle fiber growth is a slow process, so it’s not your #1 priority when toning your muscles, but it should be in your long term strategy.

It’s not that complicated to train for, but the mainstream media get it completely wrong, so pay attention!

Your weight lifting workouts in the gym should use moderately heavy weights and a fairly low number of reps. Each exercise might only be 3-5 sets of 2-5 reps each.

That simple strength training strategy will help you tone your muscles without leaving you too sore to do your sport-specific (i.e. on the bike) workouts!

If you follow the advice in mainstream fitness magazines about doing light weights and high reps, you’re either going to get no results (at best) or make negative progress since those workouts will fatigue you, leaving you too tired for your other important training!

Toning Summary

When it comes to getting a toned physique, remember these key points:

• Losing body fat by eating a clean, healthy diet will help you look more toned.
• Losing body fat by doing interval training on your bike will help you look more toned.
• Strengthening muscle fibers by lifting heavy weights for low reps will help you look more toned.

The single-leg lateral jump is like doing a lateral jump, but you are on one leg at a time (instead of pushing off with both legs.)

Step 1: Start out in the same position as when doing a regular lateral jump.

Step 2: Jump to the left like you would do in a regular lateral jump, but this time, land on your left foot, keeping your right foot just off the ground.

Step 3: Now, jump to the right, pushing off your left leg. This time you will land on your right foot and keep your left foot in the air.

Step 4: Repeat.

Continue jumping left, right, left, etc. The key to remember is to land on your outside foot and keep your inside foot in the air.

Single-Leg Lateral Jump video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Plyometrics Exercise Collection.

The lateral box jump combines the lateral jump and the box jump into one exercise. This time, instead of jumping laterally over a small object, you will jump laterally up onto a tall box.

Step 1: Start out just like in the box jump, but this time you will have the box or ledge to your left (instead of directly in front of you.)

Step 2: Using the same form as you would in a lateral jump, jump up and to the left, landing on top of the box. The idea is to jump just high enough to make it onto the box.

Step 3: Step down off the box.

Repeat.

I recommend doing a set jumping to your left, then a set jumping to your right. However, you could also alternate by stepping down onto the opposite side after each rep.

Lateral Box Jump video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Plyometrics Exercise Collection.

The box jump is like a squat jump, but instead of just jumping up, you are jumping up and landing on a tall box.

Step 1: Stand like you’re going to do a squat. Feet should be shoulder width apart, hands in front of your chest. You need to have a box or ledge in front of you. (The box should be 12-48″ tall, depending on your experience level.)

Step 2: Squat down by pushing your butt back and swing your arms downward in the same movement. (The arm swing is important, don’t neglect it like most people do!)

Step 3: Immediately explode upward from the squat position, with the goal being to jump just high enough to get your feet onto the box or ledge. Reach up with your arms to get more height.

Step 4: Step back down to the starting position, or lightly jump down from the box. (Jumping back down can be hard on your body, so be careful.)

Repeat.

Box Jump video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Plyometrics Exercise Collection.