Who doesn't want bareable biceps, triceps and shoulders? Thanks to a certain sleeve-skipping first lady, toned arms are all the rage. To get the scoop on creating sleek, sexy arms, I went to someone else who knows a thing (or a thousand) about creating show-off arms: Trainer
Jillian Michaels, who just joined SELF as a contributor.
"When it comes to arms, I like dips," she says.
"When I do three dips, I want to cry," I tell her.
"You can do build up your strength to do them!" she assures me. "To me, it's all about shoulders and triceps. We want long, lean triceps, and we want to eliminate the fat on the back of the arm and we want those really pretty rounded shoulders. You want to do something that's going to incorporate some resistance. You can do tricep extensions but you won't burn as many calories and you're not conditioning the muscle. You won't get shoulders at the same time and you're not creating a shape so you can shape the body. So I'm telling you dips is the way to go."
She's pretty convincing, right? But don't just take her word for how effective they are. Try them yourself: Sit on edge of a bench, hands at sides, fingers forward, left knee bent 90 degrees, foot flat on floor, right leg extended forward. Use arms to lift yourself off bench. Bring right leg out to right side as you lower body until elbows are bent 90 degrees. Return to start. Do 12 reps. Switch legs; repeat.
Arm yourself with a few more shape-up tips:
Add oomph: To truly firm muscles, make sure your arms feel spent after a single set of 12 reps. When reps feel easy, up resistance. If you do use dumbbells to do kickbacks or another move, can you complete those last two reps of a set with 5-pound weights like a cakewalk? Upgrade to 8-pounders.
Alternate weight: For your first upper-body strength session of the week, use heavier weights and do fewer reps (about 8); next time, go lighter, but do 12 to 15 reps. Called undulating training, it challenges your muscles in different ways, delivering even better results.
Try dumbbells: If you use machines with rigid parts such as a lateral pull-down machine, you may be working the same muscle fibers over and over, neglecting others. Swap in free weights and you'll require input from more fibers to keep steady, recruiting more muscles. Try triceps extensions: With feet hip-width apart, knees soft, a 5- to 10-pound dumbbell in each hand, lean forward until torso is parallel to floor. Hold bent elbows near sides, palms in, knuckles down. Press weights up and back, rotating palms down. Hold for one count; lower; repeat. Do three sets of 15 reps.
