Exclusive Download: , featuring all 6 of the exercises in this article. Everybody wants to know how to improve the look of their arms. Guys want them to be bigger. Women want them to be slender and toned. Unlike the size of which are largely determined by genetics , arms are most often the result of serious time under the iron. Gym-owners know this, and thus most gyms are packed wall-to-wall with equipment specifically designed to work your arms. While not all of it is useful, getting results is simply a question of putting in the work and following a. You still need to do the work, but you also need a way of training your arms without weights. Fortunately for us, there are a number of arm exercises that you can do just about anywhere. These are the muscles that we need to focus on training if you want to improve the look and strength of your arms. Triceps The triceps are found on the back of the arm, and are often neglected by men in particular who would rather train the muscle that they can see — their biceps curls get the girls etc. If you want bigger arms it follows that you need to place added emphasis on training them. Women are genetically predisposed to storing more fat than men, and in different places. Whereas a man typically stores fat on the upper body resulting in beer bellies , women tend to store it on their thighs and arms. But it is also crucial to strengthen the muscle underneath — the triceps — to give the arms shape and definition. Located at the front of the arm, biceps are perhaps the muscle most commonly associated with strength — just ask any child to make a muscle and he or she will strike a biceps pose. Not only are they good for looking at, but they have practical uses too. A strong set of biceps will help you with any pulling exercises that strengthen your back. In turn, this will help to improve posture and reduce the chances of any pain or injuries that may otherwise occur. It only takes 30 minutes max. Here are 3 of the best: 1. To perform a regular push-up you would position your hands roughly shoulder-width apart, involving both the chest and triceps. By placing your hands together and keeping your elbows close to your body to do a diamond push-up, the emphasis is placed upon your triceps as opposed to your chest. Dip Dips are another great exercise that work the triceps and chest to varying degrees depending on the variation you choose. For most people, bench dips make a good starting point, but your goal should be to work your way towards the parallel bar dip as this variation involves more musculature. The only drawback of the parallel bar dip is that you will need to find somewhere suitable to do it. Tricep Extension Compound exercises, such as the push-up and dip, are great because they work multiple muscles at once. But single-joint, or isolation, exercises also have their place in a well-rounded routine to train one specific muscle while working on any weaknesses or imbalances. Keep your abs and glutes so that your body forms a straight line. The only movement should occur at the elbows. At the very least you will need a stable overhead surface from which to hang and a horizontal edge such as a table. You can usually find both of these things in a. Chin-Up The chin-up is one of my favorite exercises, second only to the deadlift. Like the pull-up palms facing away from you , chin-ups are a great exercise for your back, but due to the difference in grip palms facing each other or towards you there is added emphasis on the biceps. This view is supported by. You pick up a barbell, bend over at the waist, and pull the weight up towards your chest. The inverted row solves that problem. Similarly to the triceps extension, this is more of an isolation exercise that is a great way to finish off training the biceps. There should be a bit of slack in the band. Hold the handles with your arms extended. Lean back the further you lean back the harder it will be. Keep your elbows high throughout. A superset is a pairing of exercises whereby one set of an exercise is performed and then a set of another exercise immediately after. The setup works because it allows one muscle to recover while the other is being trained. The order in which the supersets should be performed are indicated by a number, and the pairing by a letter. So in this workout, for example, the first superset involves chin-ups 1A and diamond push-ups 1B. You perform one set of chin-ups, and then a set of push-ups straight after. When you can perform a given exercise for the prescribed number of sets and reps, switch to one of the more challenging variations. Hi Owen, very interesting article and very useful tips I am actually going to note a couple down! One thing I learned as well by doing the diamond push ups is of course as you say to keep everything tight to really focus mentally on your chest muscle and try to contract them as much as you can on the way up. That way, after only 10 you will feel a burning sensation in the middle — which means it worked well! So my recommendation is to stay above parallel. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions. Oh and if you liked this, you should sign up for my FREE newsletter! You can sign up here: Your information is safe with me too. I never share, sell, or rent email addresses.
