Muscle Tone

Fat reduction and muscle building are two different projects, and most people only think about the first one. Taking fat off an abdomen reveals whatever is underneath it. If what is underneath is an untrained or stretched abdominal wall, a flatter stomach still reads soft, because the shape people are actually looking for is muscle, and it is not there to be uncovered.

Muscle does not hold still either. You lose muscle mass and function as you get older, and after a pregnancy the two halves of the rectus abdominis can stay separated so the wall no longer holds tension across the middle. Neither of those is a fat problem, and no amount of fat reduction touches either one.

The one treatment we offer for this works on the muscle directly, and its claim is narrow and specific: it makes muscle contract harder than you are able to make it contract on purpose.

The best candidate is already close to their goal weight and reasonably active, and their complaint is definition rather than size. It also does well for a postpartum abdominal wall that has lost its tension, where strengthening the deep muscle can narrow the separation and improve how the midsection holds itself. A wide separation, where the gap is obvious and the wall visibly bulges, is a surgical repair, and we will tell you that rather than book you a series.

It is not a weight loss treatment, and the scale is the wrong instrument to judge it with. Muscle is denser than fat, so a genuinely good result can show up as a better shape at the same weight. It is not a substitute for cardiovascular fitness or for training, and the radiofrequency gives some tightening to the skin over the treated area, but it will not correct significant laxity, so loose skin needs a different treatment. Someone carrying a substantial fat layer will get more out of reducing that first, or alongside, than out of building muscle underneath it.

There are real reasons not to have it. Metal or electronic implants in or near the treatment area, including pacemakers, defibrillators and copper intrauterine devices, rule it out, because the field acts on metal. Pregnancy rules it out. These are not fine print, they are the first questions we ask.

A consultation here is short and practical. We check for those contraindications, look at the fat layer sitting over the muscle to decide whether that should be addressed first or in parallel, and set an honest expectation of what a series will and will not change. If the thing bothering you in the mirror turns out to be skin or volume rather than tone, this is the wrong treatment, and redirecting you is the useful thing we can do.