Killer Arms in No Time

A while back I showed you how to shape up your arms in my posts Banish Bingo Wings and So You Want Great Arms 


Today I'll show you how to adapt a single exercise - the good old fashioned push up - to help you tone up your chest, shoulders and the backs of your arms.  These push ups can be performed with either your feet or your knees on the floor.  Maintain a straight body throughout the movement and keep your head slightly forwards of your hands.

1) Narrow Push Ups x 10

For this set your thumbs should almost be touching and you press up with your elbows close to your body.

2) Regular Push Ups x 10

For this set your hands will be shoulder width apart

3) Wide Push Ups x 10

For this set your hands will be placed slightly wider than your body

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How To Get Great Arms

One particularly for the guys today.  

Having great arms is mainly a concern in the summer when everyone's wearing t-shirts and vests but my advice is don't wait for good weather to work on the guns.  Get going now and then unveil the finished product as soon as Spring is here.

Here are 3 top tips to get big guns:

1. Mix up the order of exercises

Make sure you don't do the same workout on the guns repeatedly.  Keep using different exercises in a different order to ensure you fully load the biceps in every workout.  Target the biceps from as many different angles as possible.

2. Supersets 

Alternate compound exercises using lots of muscles with single muscle group exercises.  For example, blast through a set of pull ups followed by a set of hammer curls.  Then try a set of rows followed by preacher curls.  For even faster results, vary the order in which you do your supersets.  Sometimes your supersets should start with the compound exercise, other times try the single muscle exercise first and then the compound exercise.

3. Experiment 

Shake up your workout with different patterns of reps.  Sometimes 3 sets of 10, sometimes 5 sets of 5.  Drop sets of 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 repetitions, or pyramid sets of 3, 6, 9, 12, 9, 6, 3 reps.  Working to failure with every set will see your guns grow massively week by week.

See Also So You Want Toned Arms and Banish Bingo Wings & Polish Those Guns

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So You Want Toned Arms?

Picking up on Monday's post about not being able to lose weight and so adding some variety to your workouts, here are 3 exercises you can do with a resistance band that are really effective.

If you don't already do much toning, these are great for targeting the shoulders and the arms. If you already do some strength training, working with the bands challenges your muscles from new angles and can kick start a whole new round of muscle growth.

Bands are great to have in the house - available in most sports departments - and you'll usually find them in gyms.

Shoulder Raises

Begin with your arm by your side with tension in the band between your hand and your foot
Keeping your shoulders low, lift the band out to the side.
Repeat x 15 then switch to the other arm

Bicep Curls

Holding the ends of the band loop it under your foot with your arms straight and palms forwards.
Keeping your elbows at your sides, curl your arms up to the front
Straighten your arms and repeat x 15.

Tricep Extensions

Hold one end of the band in the small of your back and the other end behind your head
This start position has a little bit of tension in the band
Keeping your elbow close to your head, straighten your top arm
This end position has a lot of tension in the band
Lower the top arm slowly and repeat x 15 before switching arms