Yes ladies, it’s one of those problems most of us will realize in our lifetime, flabby upper arms. Have you ever lifted up your arm to wave at someone and you can feel the flab jiggling long after your movement has stopped? You are certainly not alone. This is an issue that plagues women and it’s related to the usual three suspects: age, hormones and genes. Women should pay attention to this area unless you want to wear long sleeves forever to hide them you can learn what works to help tone them up.
This is an area that women commonly neglect when exercising. A lot of the focus tends to be on the area from the waist to the knees. The large group of muscles in the legs and the abdominals are never neglected. Doing a cardiovascular workout you can’t help but hit these areas on a treadmill, elliptical or stair climber but there is little focus on the upper arms during this type of workout. However to combat the airborne arm flab you need to engage in resistance exercises that target this problem area. Training the triceps can give you some toned muscles and sexy arms you will be happy to show off. Conversely if you do not use consistent resistance training the arm muscles are sure to lose tone and texture and you’ll have those wings flapping in the wind every time you raise your arm.
Your triceps make up two thirds of your upper arm so keeping them in shape will enhance the look or your arms greatly. It is strongly suggested for this problem area you train your triceps together with the oppositional muscle biceps at least twice a week. Exercises that engage this muscle group include extensions, dips and push ups to name three common and effective ones. The extension move can be done standing with arms tucked by your side extending your arm back, seated with your arms by your ears and dropping your arms behind your head or even lying down, you can hold a weight and extend it across your chest or even a bar and drop it down just above your head. These can be found with direction under the terms kickbacks, French curl, arm extensions and head caves. The key to all of these is holding your upper arm stationary and movement is from the elbow down so you are working the triceps effectively. Dips are another great exercise for this part of the arm and you can increase or decrease the difficulty depending on how close our feet are to your bottom. Raising your feet up on a bench and dipping below can further increase the challenge. Push ups with your hands in close will force you to engage the triceps even more than a standard push up. Even a bench press with arms in tight is a great exercise for toning the arms as well.
As with all training begin each set using extremely light weight to warm up the muscle group. Do a set of approximately 12-16 reps in a moderate pace. When you increase your weight make sure you have proper form. If you are swinging your arms during an extension you will be missing the targeted muscle group. If you need to drop down the weight and focus on doing it properly! If you do any exercise incorrectly you will never gain the full effects and put yourself at risk for injury. If you need to ask a professional for guidance or find some visual aids from books or online to make sure you have the technique down pat.
Don’t ignore this part of the body when you go through your regular routine. Make it a focus, and make sure you are doing it correctly and you’ll soon be able to say goodbye with confidence, and even when you are wearing a sleeveless top!