Hey, ladies!
Today I’m going to show you five proven exercises to tone your arms.
All right, you guys.
Today we’re going to be hitting the biceps and triceps.
They respond really quickly to using any kind of resistance and strength training.
So, try to put this into your workout at least twice a week and you’re going to get gorgeous,
toned arms no matter what your fitness level is.
Just really quickly, let’s go over some quick anatomy.
The biceps, here the brachia is a muscle that’s on the front of your arm and it includes a
short head, and a long head, which are basically two, single muscles that work as one, big
muscle.
The other is going to be the tricep brachia.
We’ll have three muscles back here.
You’re going to have your long head, which is in the back; your medial, which is right
underneath the long head; and then you’re going to have your lateral head, which is
going to run on the side of your arm.
Just knowing the different muscles and how they work, that will give you a better idea
when you’re doing your exercises.
“Gosh, how am I hitting them?
Am I doing enough angles with my exercises to actually hit all of those different heads
involved in all of these muscles?”
The first thing we’re going to start with is bat wings.
It’s funny because a lot of times people call these bat wings because we start – as
we age, or just for not working out enough – they progressively start to droop.
So, this is a great exercise.
I love this one.
So, this one can be done with a fairly light weight and what we’re going to do is basically
hinge completely at the waist to a flat back.
You’re going to hold the weights down in front of you.
Think about a neutral head, not looking up.
You’re going t bring these up.
Not a deep row, just to the sides of your chest.
You’re going to extend your arms out, you’re going to hold, and then you’re going to
lower.
Basically, exactly how a bat extends their wings.
With this one we’re hitting the backs of the shoulders – the posterior delt – but
we’re hitting the triceps, just in a different way than we normally would.
Think about a little bit of an isometric hold before we lower.
With this I would say do anywhere from 12 to 15 reps, three rounds.
Now that we’ve got those warmed up a little bit, next we’re going to go into an iso-hold
bicep curl.
Now we’re going to go into our biceps a little bit.
What I love about this one is, any kind of isometric hold is great for building strength.
With these, one arm is going to do a 90-degree hold as the other one curls.
You can do these with both feet down.
I usually work on my balance by raising my leg of the arm that’s doing the isometric
hold.
Then you’re just going to do your 12 to 15 reps.
Make sure you’re doing a full range of motion.
I’m going all the way down to my leg, all the way back up.
Then as you’re doing this, if you notice your arm down here, just self-correct and
try to do – keep that elbow at a 90-degree.
You can take a brief rest.
When you’re done with that you’re going to do the same thing on the other side.
Get your 90-degree hold and then we’re just going to curl on the other side.
A really great exercise for your biceps.
Next, we’re going to go into triceps.
So, I’m having you go back and forth between muscle groups.
This is another really good one.
I’m going to show you two variations.
The first one will be modified for beginners.
What you’re going to do is, you’re going to have your hands on the ground, your shoulders
above your hands, and I want you to rotate where the crease of your elbows are out.
See how I’m rotating them and they’re pointing forward?
I’m going to drop my butt a little bit.
My elbows are going to stay super close to the sides of my body.
I’m going to lower straight down and I’m going to press up with those elbows.
Really keeping them super close, pressing up.
For more advanced, you’re going to lift up, go into a wider stance.
Same thing, making sure my elbows are rotated inward.
I’m going to lower down and press back up.
This is going to be a bit tougher.
Really feeling that on the backs of my arms.
With that, do as many reps as you can, three rounds.
Next, we’re going to go into hammer curls.
This is another variation of a bicep curl.
What this is going to do, this is going to be – we’ve got the barbells, or the dumbbells
rotated this way instead of here.
So, we’re going to have them here.
I usually try to keep them at my thigh because a lot of times you can have them here and
you can get this swinging motion.
We want to really isolate them a little more.
So we’re going to curl up, go right above a 90-degree angle, and back down.
You can do these alternating, or you can lift both at the same time.
Once again, just hitting the muscle a little differently.
It’s working more of the biceps brachialis, which is more of the peak of the bicep.
And down.
Once again, maybe 12 to 15.
Think about a slow, eccentric lowering, which is also important with this one.
And down.
Our last one is going to be a bent-over tricep extension.
This is always a good one.
With this one we’re going to hinge at the waist.
You’re going to keep your dumbbells low.
Think about bringing them up to the sides of your body, and this is where we’re going
to kick them straight up to the celling.
So here, kick straight out.
So, your elbows are glued to your side and you’re thinking about getting that full
extension.
If you can do a 1 or 2 second isometric hold at the top, really squeezing that tricep muscle;
that’s where you’ll get your results.
Five really good exercises to help tone the arms.
Like I mentioned, if you can get these into your workout even twice a week you’re really
going to see a big difference in your arms.
Thanks for joining me today, you guys.
Check us out on social media.
Facebook, Instagram; they’re always putting out these great video clips every day with
different exercises.
Different videos to help you out.
Like the video if you liked what you saw today.
Hopefully it was helpful.
Thanks for joining me and we’ll work out soon.