You won’t be embarrassed by short-sleeved shirts anymore.
To make your arms look taut and sculpted, you need to flex your muscles. Sure, they won’t help you get rid of excess fat, but they will give you a more beautiful member.
We’ve selected a few exercises to work all the muscles that make your arms and shoulders look good. Most of them only require dumbbells, but there are also exercises with a horizontal bar, dumbbells or without any equipment, using your body weight.
How to do arm exercises
Exercise 2 to 3 times a week. Rest at least 48 hours between workouts to give your muscles time to recover.
Choose 1 or 2 exercises from each category and include them in your program. Change the movements each session to work all the muscle fibers and accelerate your progress.
In other words, do 3-6 arm exercises each workout.
Choose weights on the dumbbell and barbell movements so that you can perform 8 to 12 reps without breaking your movement technique. Do 3 to 5 sets.
If you choose a bodyweight exercise, do 3 to 5 sets of resistance, with as many reps as possible. If you can’t perform the exercise 6-8 times without breaking technique – swinging, pulling, lower back drop – substitute with an easier variation.
Exercises for the front of the arm
These exercises will increase the thickness of a muscle located at the front of the arm: the biceps brachii. It is activated when you bend your arm at the elbow and also when you pull something towards you or pull yourself towards something.
Concentrated biceps lift
Sit on a bench, hold a dumbbell in your hand. Press your shoulder against your inner thigh. Bend your elbow as you lift the dumbbell up and back down. Perform the movement in a fluid and controlled manner, trying to move your arm through the full range of motion: full flexion and extension.
This is an isolated exercise, working only one joint: the elbow. Therefore, do not move the rest of your body. If you need to work your body to lift a dumbbell, use a lighter weight or reduce the number of reps.
Dumbbell lifts on an incline bench
Sit on an incline bench, dumbbells in hand, leaning your body against the backrest with your feet flat on the floor. Lower your arms so that they hang freely and your elbows are behind your body line. Bend your arms with the dumbbells, then slowly and under control return to the starting position and repeat.
Lifting a dumbbell or barbells on the biceps
Grab the dumbbell face down, bend your elbows and raise it to shoulder height. Lower back down and repeat. Make sure that only your arms move and that the rest of your body remains static: there should be no swaying.
The same exercise can be done with dumbbells. At the extreme point, turn your hands with your fingers towards you.
Bar pull with inverted grip to waist height
Grab the bar with an inverted grip, leaning forward slightly but keeping your back straight. Raise the bar until it touches your upper abdomen, lower it gently and repeat.
