You heard me, after I get to my goal weight (15 pounds away woo!) I want neaten up my arms. I have access to dumbells and resistance bands. What are are some excersizes I can tone my biceps and triceps? How many reps should I do? I was planning to do weight lifting 3 times a week, is that a enough? thank you!
First, start now, don't wait until you get to your goal weight.
Second, find a good (not hot power) yoga class near you and attend 3 times a week. One that shows you the proper for for plank, dolphin, down dog, chaturanga (low push up hovering position) and starts working on inversion preparations. That will give you all over toning and work on every part of your arms.
The current thinking these days is that the best way to train for overall strength and hotness is to focus on movements rather than muscles: you want to do exercises that engage not only your biceps and triceps, but also all the muscles in your chest, shoulders and back. Big compound exercises are best (and burn the most calories!).
I find the most basic way to start lifting weights is to do a horizontal pull, a horizontal push, a vertical pull and a vertical push and then finish with some core work.
Your workout would include one exercise from each of these categories (and 3 sets of 10 is a good place to start).
Horizontal pull: rows of all types--seated rows, one-armed rows, barbell rows, whatever you like.
Horizontal push: incline pushups (until you're strong enough to do them from the floor), incline dumbbell chest presses, etc
Vertical pull: the lat pulldown machine is best for this. If you don't have access to one, you might have to work on pull-ups or something like that instead.
Vertical push: military presses (also known as dumbbell presses). These are awesome. Do them.
Finish with some crunches or planks--something to work the core muscles directly.
But you also should work your lower body too: squats, deadlifts, lunges, step ups are AWESOME.
In order to "shrink" the biceps and triceps (talking about excess fat), then it goes away from aerobic exercise. Although spot training is impossible, you'll gradually lose weight around the entire body.
As for toning, I like using biceps/triceps machines. Then I move onto free weights when my body gets used to the original workout. It's important to change workouts every so often because if a body gets used to a certain workout, it won't be as effective anymore.
I suggest to do three sets of eight (to begin with) and gradually increase to three sets of ten and so on.
Congrats on being so close to goal weight! I agree with others that you should start now... I haven't even lost that much weight yet and my strength training efforts are already showing (and helping my weight loss along).
women's health mag online website has a lot of good suggestions with pictures: i would go to their site and search arms workout and the 15 minute arm sculpting workout - so fun!
I lifted for years on both machines and free weights and never got as toned as when I started doing planks and pushups regularly for yoga and pilates! Your body weight is probably higher than a free weight that you could lift and it's right there with you all the time! If pushups are too hard initially, you can start an an angle on stairs or against the wall.
I don't know which JM video you're doing, but I don't think her videos focus on strength. I have 30DS which I'm doing on days I don't lift just to get my heart rate up. I don't think what she calls "strength" can really be considered strength training. She has 3-5 moves of high reps/very low weights every day. Strength training is low reps/very heavy weights with 24-48 hours in between.
Don't get me wrong, her workout is good for cardio and to get the heart pumping, but you aren't going to glean the results of actual weight training from them. 9 minutes of lifting 3-5 lb weights every day doesn't build and tone muscle.
Go with mkroyer's advice- get a solid lifting program and really commit yourself to it. Good luck!
fitterchick160 , 12-16-2011 09:41 PM
