What happens to a muscle that loses tone?
A loss of tone does not mean muscle wastage, which many people
may think, but it can lead to muscle wastage if it is due to the
muscle not being able to contract/function anymore. Muscle wastage
is known as atrophy. Low tone is known as hypotonia (the opposite
being hypertonia [spasticity]). A muscle with low tone is generally
weak against resistance, where as a muscle with high tone has a lot
of resistance against a force. Tone is set unconsciously so that we
can move fluently, so unless it is loss of tone due to some kind of
neurological disorder, then it just means that the muscle is not in
a contracted state in any way.