Exercises for the Arms: How to get Toned Arms

By Trina Remedios

You may have a flat stomach, but do you have flabby arms? People who are naturally thin tend to develop sagging arms as they step into their 30s; this becomes a glaring image flaw as you grow older. To help you get the right look so that you can flaunt well toned arms, we bring you some great upper body exercises for the arms. Keep in mind, that to lose weight you will need to follow a balanced workout that works your entire body as spot targeting is a myth.

Full Body Workouts Are Important: Spot training is a myth and every good trainer will reinforce this point. If you want toned sexy arms, you have to make your body work for it. Starting with a full body workout, since you want to tone your arms, focus more on upper body and core strength exercises. But you should still exercise your leg muscles and torso with full body effort exercises like weighted squats.

Best Exercise for Full Body Workouts

Strengthening Shoulders: It is important to note that you will have a disproportionate muscle growth on your shoulders if you focus only on upper body exercises. Also, if you focus only on cardio, your shoulders and arms won't be toned. Get appropriate size shoulders that will complement your toned arms. Shoulder exercises will help you strengthen your arms while making them flexible.

Want to get the perfect size shoulders? We give you a detailed workout on How to Get Sexy Shoulders

Focus on Pulling and Pushing Movements in Upper Body Workouts: Arnav Sarkar - strength and conditioning coach - says, "Work equally on pulling as well as pushing muscles of the upper body. For eg, if you do push ups (pushing), then make sure that you also do some pulling exercise like barbell rows. Work for both endurance and strength development, instead of focusing only on one. For eg you can do some heavy overhead presses in the 5-10 reps range and along with that do some high repetition sets of bodyweight push ups, to get a more complete training effect."

Find out the Exercises to Boost Your Upper Body

Exercises for the shoulder and toned arms

1.    Overhead press: Take dumbbells in both hands and stand with your feet at shoulder width. Now push up your hands over your head and bring them down again to shoulder level.  Repeat till failure. This is a great workout for your shoulders and upper arms.

2.    Bent over rows: Stand with your legs at shoulder width and knees slightly bent. Hold dumbbells with arms straight at knee level. Now pull your arms back, bending at the elbows and then extend them. Repeat till failure.

3.    Pull ups or lateral pull downs: For pull ups all you need is a bar and you need to heave your self up and down which is a good workout for the full body and this really rips the arms and shoulders into shape. Lateral pull downs involve gym equipment. The machine provides a bar with weights that you can take up and down as per your requirement. While sitting, hold the bar overhead with your hands a little more than shoulder distance and pull it down to your chest. Once again, extend your arms and repeat till failure. Both these exercises work the entire chest, shoulder and upper arms area.

4.    Headstands, handstands, elbow stands, shoulder stands:  These are all yoga poses that can be implemented with a fair bit of practice. The aim is to hold yourself up in these postures for as long as you can stay. These postures build tremendous strength in your shoulders as in all the four postures above your shoulders are carrying the weight of your entire body! Start by doing them up against a wall (supervised of course) and once the balance comes, it's easy to stay in these postures for as long as you want.

Source: Exercises for the Arms: How to get Toned Arms