Toning Arm Muscles
Written on: November 25, 2005
First I would like to mention you should read our Muscle Toning Overview article before reading this, as it will help provide you with a solid foundation on what exactly muscle tone is. In this article we will be focusing specifically on building the muscle in the biceps and triceps.
Resistance training through the use of freeweights (barbells and dumbbells) is the best method of toning your arm muscles. We will take this article in two sections, one for biceps and the other for triceps. A lot of people believe the key to toning the arm muscles is by focusing on barbell or dumbbell curls, while that simply isn't the case. The image to the left shows that the triceps (highlighted in red on the left arm) account for more than 2/3 the size of the arm. Therefore, if you want to help bring definition to your arms, and size, you should focus on your triceps.
Toning Biceps
The biceps are one of the smallest muscles to train on your body, which means they recover quick. A lot of people try to get fancy when they train biceps by performing a wide range of obscure bicep exercises, when all they really need to do is focus on one or two. The single most effective bicep exercise is the curl (whether it be with a barbell, dumbbell, cable, or machine). Any other exercises are simply alterations of the wrist, which really doesn't do anything much different, aside from avoiding redundancy. Training your biceps once a week is more than sufficient. If you're simply looking to tone them, and not necessarily make them monsterous, performing 6 sets of dumbbell or barbell curls of about 12 reps a piece would be sufficient.
Toning Triceps
Unlike the biceps, the triceps can be hit effectively at different angles as there are two sections, the longhead and the shorthead. There are a lot of different tricep exercises, some are good for overall mass building, and others are better for definement, which is what you will probably be interested if you want to tone. Here are some worth while tricep exercises to perform:
- Skull Crushers (Nose Breakers)
These are a good starting exercise. They emphasize an isolated yet challenging movement.
- Tricep Kickbacks
These are performed with dumbbells, usually one arm at a time. I usually do these in the middle of a tricep workout.
- Cable Pushdowns
You must have access to a cable machine, and either a V-Bar grip or a straight bar grip. I perform these at the end of a tricep workout usually.
Sometimes people ask me whether or not you should work both biceps and triceps together on the same day, which many do. But it really doesn't matter. Sometimes I do, and other times I don't. It's good to switch things up and avoid repitition. Hitting your triceps once a week is also sufficient. For those looking to tone their triceps, high reps with the 3 exercises I mentioned at 4 sets a piece is ideal.
So if toning arm muscles is on your mind, follow what I said and in time you'll develop some shapely arms!
