Tanned, toned, sleek, strong arms…now it doesn’t get much sexier than that! While we can’t help you with the tan part (and yes we know being tan is not really healthy, but that’s another article all together) we can help with the toning.

Your arms are comprised of three main parts: biceps (the front muscle on the upper arm), triceps (the back muscle on the upper arm) and forearms (the inside muscle on the lower arm). While strong forearms are important for certain upper body moves and muscular balance, unless you’re a sailor with a mermaid tattoo that you want to make dance, big bulky forearms aren’t desirable. This article will focus on strengthening and toning your biceps and triceps and your forearms will get some work along the way too.

For both men and women, strong biceps and triceps are essential. Aside from looking great in sleeveless shirts, your biceps are involved in countless upper body activities you do each day such as picking things up and carrying them. Your triceps are also busy muscles. For whenever you push something, that’s your triceps at work.


Because our biceps and triceps are so integral in our daily movements, isolating and training these muscles is not difficult. However, it’s essential to perform the exercise movements correctly, if you don’t you will receive less then optimum benefit and could potentially harm yourself. And, it is very difficult to unlearn bad exercise habits, so it is best to learn the right technique from the very start. Working with a personal trainer can help to ensure you are using proper form and getting the most out of each exercise.

Beautiful Biceps

Unfortunately most people don't realise that a lot of upper arm exercises stress your arms in the same manner and you end up doing several different exercises that basically do the same thing over and over again. For proper upper arm development you need to execute arm exercises that hit your arms from every possible angle for full muscle fibre recruitment. Again, a personal trainer can help in this area, providing a diverse list of exercise options, but here are some to get you started.

Curl

These can be done with an actual barbell, hand weights or even soup cans.

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent.
• Pull your bellybutton in (this helps to stabilize you and provides a little bonus abdominal work).
• Grip the weight with an underhand grip (palms facing forward) approximately hip width apart and let your arms hang down at your sides.
• Keeping your elbows close to your sides, flex at the elbows and curl the weight up to approximately shoulder level.
• Return slowly and under control to the starting position.

Repeat for 8-10 reps, 2-3 sets or until fatigue.

Remember to exhale on the exertion (the way up). And if you can’t remember that, just remember to breathe, don’t hold your breath! Also, don’t swing the weights. If you find you have to swing to get the weight up, then stop, you’ve fatigued the muscle and you’re done with that set.

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