TeamFLEX Newsletter

Weight Loss Spotlight

Firm Arms

Wouldn't everybody like to have nice firm and toned arms that show when you wear sleeveless clothes?

Well, keeping those arms looking good means putting some time in at the health club or the gym. Arms do not stay firm and toned, especially not in women if we don't work out regularly. Some people are born with better genetics then others but the majority of women need to work a little on them to keep them firm.

When we talk about the upper arm flab that just appears one day out of the blue when we get a certain age we mean the triceps muscles and the muscle density and firmness that we lost in this area. The good news is that we can actually get it back however it does require some work.

The lose skin is nothing but a shrunken soft muscle that needs to be forced to firm up again. We do this by applying stress in form of weight to the muscle, overloading the muscle with just about the right amount of resistance and weight for your muscle to react and firm up. By repeating this process, the muscle will learn to expect the overload and gets stronger and firmer in order to be able to meet the new resistance that we apply to it.

A good arm work out could include two or three biceps exercises and three triceps exercises. There are so many different types of arm work outs. You can work out with machines or with free weights or combining the two. There are also a lot of good exercises that you can do with just your own bodyweight as resistance. For instance triceps dips and pull-ups are two good basic but hard exercises that involve arms.

If you want to use free weights and cables there are the classic biceps curls, hammer curls, barbell curls, preacher curls, concentration curls, cable curls that all work different angles of the two biceps muscles. Remember to keep your wrists locked straight through all the curl exercises, you want the biceps to do the work, not the wrist and forearms.

Opposite the biceps muscle on your upper arm run the triceps muscles. As you can tell by the name, tri, it consists of three smaller muscles running next to one another together creating the triceps muscle.

The triceps muscle is your extension muscle, which means in order to strengthening it we need to apply weight in the form of an extension movement like in triceps press-downs, triceps extensions, triceps push ups, triceps dips and over head dumbbell triceps extensions. These are all free weight exercises and bodyweight exercises.

At some fitness centers you find machines that do some of these exercises too. The advantage of performing them in a machine is the added balance and stability that a machines supplies. If you are a beginner it might be a good idea to start with the machines and work your way up to free weights, as you get stronger. The machines also give you more support for your back and posture when doing the exercises, which is really important for proper form to achieve a full range of motion through the exercise. A lot of physical therapists use them and many rehabilitating exercises are also done on machines after surgery or an injury.

For women, light weight when working with free weights seem to work better then big heavy dumbbells. Keep the repetitions high in the sets and the sets between three and four if you only want to firm up your arms.

If you are looking to gain size for firm arms you need to up the weight of the dumbbells a little to force the muscle to grow. Always remember to stretch your arms after the workout to improve flexibility and prevent injuries.