I don't believe in damaging a muscle when you are going for tone. If you want to build muscle mass (which I don't), then you want to do enough volume of lifts to induce a bit of damage. After this, you need to allow the muscles enough time to recover to rebuild themselves a bit bigger than they were before. If you are going for tone...you want to do less sets and volume so you don't damage the muscles. Since you are not damaging the muscles, you can work those same muscles out more often.

How Many Sets for Muscle Tone?

Remember, your goal for muscle tone is to avoid damaging the muscles. If you get sore the following day, back off a bit the next time that you work those same muscles. I like to do 3-4 sets of anywhere between 3-10 reps for muscle tone. I chose 2 exercises per body part.

How Many Reps in Each Set?

Very few people understand how effective low reps are for muscle tone. Low reps create harder contractions and over time, your muscle will display better tone. Feel free to include medium to high reps, but make sure you don't neglect heavier low rep training as well. Gaining strength at a low body fat level is a great way to look ripped!

It is Important to Work the Muscles Often When Going for Tone!

This is one of the big keys to muscle tone, that I never hear personal trainers talk about. Muscle tone is basically the partial contraction of a muscle in a relaxed state, so your muscles are contacting a bit on their own even when you are completely relaxed. The way to increase this is to contract you muscles hard (workout) on a frequent basis. There are two reasons you want to avoid damaging your muscles. The first is that if you are sore, you will over-train if you work that muscle again too soon. The second is that you will be unable to get a hard contraction on a damaged muscle.

Do NOT Train to Failure or Use Forced Reps When Going for Muscle Tone

Going to failure and using forced reps is great for muscle mass, but bad for muscle tone. These two lifting techniques insure that muscle damage will occur! Another problem with going to failure is that "you are training your muscle to fail". Your body will react by not contracting the muscle as hard during the next set.

Here is a Typical Mass Building Split Routine

A popular mass building routine is the "3 day split". A 3 day split simply means that all the muscles in your body are worked in 3 different workouts. So what a lot of people do is work chest, shoulders, and triceps on one day...back and biceps on another day...and legs and abs on the third day. The benefit here is that since the muscles are getting damaged, they need more recovery time. Also since you are only focused on a couple of body parts, you could really do a high volume of intense lifts for each body part.

The 2 Day Split Muscle Tone Workout Routine

Since you want to work each muscle group more often when going for tone, you should try to split you workout over two days instead of three. The great thing here is that you don't need much recovery time when you don't damage the muscles.

Note: I'm just barely scratching the surface here when it comes to setting up a good workout routine. The main goal for muscle tone is that you just need to remember that muscle damage and sore muscles are not your friend. Lift just enough to generate strong contractions, and spend the rest of the time burning off body fat with intense cardio...also don't be afraid to lift heavy as long as you do not reach failure.

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