Lots of women dream of having sexy, toned arms and shoulders, but shy away from lifting weights out of fear of looking too bulky and masculine. It’s no wonder why so many of us look to First Lady Michelle Obama for our daily fitspiration. Her arms (or should I say “guns”?) and shoulders have just enough definition but not too much so that she still looks feminine.
Lucky for you, BlackDoctor.org recently spoke with three fitness experts, Adria Ali, a certified personal trainer of more than 13 years and the owner and creator of The Fit Tip Daily App; Brandon Mentore, a strength and conditioning coach, functional medicine practitioner, and sports nutritionist of 15 years; and Jazmin Truesdale, a certified personal trainer and fitness consultant of more than a decade and CEO of Jazmin Fitness, on how to achieve perfectly toned arms and shoulders just in time for summer. Here are 20 tips from the experts themselves:
- To prevent bulking up the arms or any body part, you want to keep the volume low between three and four sets. Many people think the heavier the weight, the more bulky you get, which is possible to a certain degree. Volume is where bulk happens so if you perform six or more sets of an exercise that’s considered high volume and can cause bulkiness. – BM
- Stretching is an important part of any lifting routine. In a sense, stretching allows room for the new muscle fiber to be built. Make sure you stretch your shoulders, triceps and biceps. Tight muscles lead to poor form, injury and bad posture. – AA
- Don’t work out your biceps more than your triceps or you could develop joint problems from the muscle imbalance. – JT
- Arms don’t have to be worked that frequently; start off with two times a week, working your way up to three at the most. – BM
- Protein is the building block for muscle. Try to eat a healthy amount of protein within 45 minutes of completing weight training routine. You can also choose to supplement with Branch Chain Amino Acids for extra fast recovery. BCAAs also deliver protein building blocks directly into the muscles, which allow the muscles to grow and recovery rapidly. – AA
- Perform fewer exercise for biceps, but use heavier weights. There aren’t too many options to exercise your biceps so take advantage of a staple exercise like dumbbell curls and challenge yourself to get the most out of it. – BM
- You should perform 2-3 different exercises per muscle group. For example, your workout for biceps could include bicep curls and reverse bicep curls. – JT
- Start off with a weight that is challenging without being too heavy. If you can’t perform any of the exercises 10-15 times in a row, then the weight is too heavy. – AA
- Be careful when training shoulder muscles like the deltoids. You don’t need heavy weights as much as you need variation in the exercises you use to train them. – BM
- Holding a pause of one or two counts at the end point in an exercise allows for a static contraction. This will define the muscle, add an additional burn and increase the effectiveness of the exercise. – AA