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Toning upper arm flab
Help! The undersides of my upper arms (the part that jiggles when I wave) are so flabby. In the past, when I was walking a lot and lost over two stone, my arms were fairly toned, but lately I haven't been exercising and the problem has become much worse. Any suggestions?
In order to change this, there are three factors to take into account: Weight, body composition and muscle tone.
Weight:As you mentioned, when you were walking regularly, you lost over two stone and the problem was better. As you restart your walking programme and lose body weight, you'll see improvements.
Body composition:This is the amount of body fat you have in relation to the amount of muscle, water, bone and other lean tissues. Improving your body composition is not simply a matter of weight loss, nor can you request specific areas where you’d like to ‘zap off’ fat. When you lose weight, you will burn off fat and preserve muscle, thereby improving your body composition. However, in order to lose inches and still stay toned, you need to reduce your fat and calorie intake and exercise regularly. If you only watch what you eat or only focus on exercise, you either lose a lot of muscle and water with the fat you drop, or you lose water weight but don’t tone your muscles. And the results aren’t that satisfying either way.
Muscle tone: Walking, as with most forms of exercise, will help increase your ratio of lean muscle to fat. But unfortunately, it does little to target your upper arm problem area. To do this, try some exercises that firm up your triceps in addition to your normal walking routine. Adding some tone to this area will definitely affect the ‘jiggle’ factor. Here are a couple of exercises that can help:
Bench dips
- Sit on the edge of your bed or a sturdy chair with your palms planted on each side of your hips and your fingers hanging over the edge. Walk your feet out a little so that your hips are off the chair. Your behind should just clear the edge as you use your arms to lower yourself down.
- Keeping your knees bent, lower yourself until your elbows are at 90 degrees and your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Use your arms to raise yourself up and continue to raise and lower yourself 12-15 times. Do two to three sets. As this becomes easier, do the exercise with your legs straight.
Triceps kickbacks
- Start with a small dumbbell or some substitute (such as a tin of tomatoes or a plastic bottle filled with water). Bend over at the waist, resting one hand on a chair, so that your back is flat. Grasping the weight in the other hand, bring your bent elbow up to your side and keep it there. This is the starting position.
- Now, keeping your elbow close in to your side, extend your forearm back until your arm is straight, then lower and repeat 12-15 times. Do two to three sets. When this gets to be too easy, increase the weight.
Why not chat to other iVillagers about exercise on the Shaping Up message board. Take a look at some of the LIVE discussions happening now on the board:
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