3 Exercises for Strengthening Your Arm Muscles

Having some arm strength is necessary to do all kinds of things. Plus, it looks great!

The strength of your arms and legs depends on muscle mass; therefore, they must be continually strengthened.

But muscle mass isn’t the only factor when it comes to strengthening your arm muscles. Another factor is important: muscle tone.

What is muscle tone?

Muscle tone is also known as residual muscle tension. It’s very important for your health.

Muscle tone has the job of keeping your body in partial muscle contraction. It helps you keep good posture. In other words, it maintains your body’s structure.

Muscle tone should be present in all of your muscles, including your arms.

As for the other influencing factors in arm strength, both flexibility and hydration play an important role.

Thus, it’s vital to get good nutrition and keep your muscles in shape.

Why do I need to work my arm muscles?

When we’re talking about your arms’ muscular function, it’s not just about strength or appearance.

When you don’t exercise them properly, there can be significant problems, such as:

• Muscle atrophy
• Hypotonia

These are serious conditions and the best way to treat them is with physical activity.

Next, we’ll go through a series of exercises you can do to strengthen your arm muscles.

Exercises to strengthen your arms

There is a multitude of ways you can strengthen your arms. Along with a good diet and proper hydration, exercise is fundamental.

Here are three great exercises:

1. Triceps dips

When people create exercise routines focused on arm strength, they tend to get a lot of things wrong.

The most common problem is that they tend to be all about the biceps, neglecting other muscles like the deltoids and triceps.

Because of this, we’ll focus on an exercised called “triceps dips.” You can do them anywhere and they’re very easy.

• To start the dips, stand with your back to a surface where you can rest your hands (this could be a bench, wall, or chair, for example).
• Your legs should be shoulder-width apart.
• Your arms should form a 90 degree angle when you lower your body.
• Taking advantage of gravity and your own body weight, lower your body while keeping your legs straight.
• It’s recommended to do 4 sets of 10 repetitions each.

2. Arm scissors

This exercise works all the major muscles of your arms but focuses on the deltoids, which makes up part of your shoulders.

• Begin by standing normally (feet shoulder-width apart).
• From here, hold a dumbbell in each hand, arms extended out from either side of your body.
• Bring the weights towards the front of your body, as if they were going to meet each other, but instead keep going until you form an X (this is where the name “scissors” comes from).
• The pace of this move shouldn’t be fast but also not too slow.
• It’s recommended to do 3 sets of 10 repetitions each.

We recommend: The Best Exercises to Tone Your Legs

3. Side push-ups

When it comes to push-ups, we’re talking about one of the most common strength-training exercises.

Here ,we’ll show you a quite effective version for our particular goal. It’s a bit more complicated, and so may require some extra effort.

• You’ll need an exercise or yoga mat.
• To start, support yourself with one palm and both feet together on the mat.
• Just like with regular push-ups, bend the arm that’s supporting your body and return to your starting position, extending your other arm above you.
• It’s a good idea to do them slowly to avoid injury, and to switch arms after each push-up.
• It’s recommended to do 3 sets of repetitions, each arm.

Principal image courtesy of wikiHow.com