Having taut and toned arms means being able to wear that strapless dress or sleeveless shirt and feeling good about yourself while doing it. It also means lifting children, groceries, and other heavy items without much of a struggle, if any at all. How do you train your arms with weights so they are this fit and trim?
Arm Training Schedule
For starters, you’re going to want to set aside time 3-4 days a week to work on your arms in order to achieve maximum results. These should be on non-consecutive days so that your muscles have a full 24 to 48 hours in between sessions to heal and get ready for the next training session.
Working All of Your Arm Muscles
Also, training your arms means working all of the muscles in your arm so that they all advance in size and strength at the same time, creating a more symmetrical balance. This means working your biceps, triceps, and forearm and here are some exercises for each:
- Biceps: Bicep curls, hammer curls, push ups
- Triceps: Triceps dips, close grip bench press, triceps extensions
- Forearms: Wrist curls, farmer’s walk, finger curls
Building up all of your arm muscles also protects you from injury as one doesn’t negatively impact the other due to differences in strength.
A Word About Weight
Deciding what level of weights to use in your arm-based strength training sessions depends on your goal. For instance, if you want to develop arms that are tone but not too muscular, then you want to choose lighter weights and do more reps. On the other hand, if your goal is to build muscle mass in your arms, then you want to choose heavier weights and do fewer reps.
By following these suggestions, you’ll develop arms that you’re proud of…not ones that you hide under long sleeves.
What types of exercises do you like to use when working your arms?
