Training and doing arm exercises is of vital importance for the day to day life of any person. In addition to helping maintain a healthy lifestyle, strengthening the upper extremities is also beneficial in preventing injuries in the event of a fall or accident, and they are even a key element in running races. Think that during any type of test, the arms have the function of balancing the body and offering an economic stimulus to the runner.
What are arm exercises?
We refer to arm exercises to all those practices that directly or indirectly involve all the muscles and joints of the extremities. These can be the biceps, the triceps, the shoulders as well as the forearms. Most exercises are based on muscle contractions up and down with a certain weight, depending on the physical form of the person.
What are the benefits of performing arm exercises?
The benefits that we will achieve by exercising the upper extremities are many and really varied. Some of the most important to highlight are the following:
- Increase and strengthening of the muscles of the arms
- Easier to carry loads such as shopping bags
- Helps maintain a steady pace in running events
- They are vital for training other muscles such as the pectorals
- Acts as a defense mechanism and helps prevent injuries
- Improves performance in sports where the arms are used such as basketball or volleyball
- They facilitate the support of the trunk in exercises where the legs are the protagonists
How to do arm exercises properly?
- The main objective is to work all the muscles that surround the arms. However, in this type of exercise, the entire area of the heart and back is also involved. It is important to perform a routine with adequate loads and not with more weight than you can pull. Otherwise, you risk suffering any type of back injury.
- Bend your knees, tighten your entire abdominal area and place your back at a 90-degree angle. One of the biggest symptoms of performing the exercise poorly is none other than rounding the back. You can suffer a muscle contracture.
- Contract the muscle more explosively and return to the starting position more slowly. You will work the muscle better.
- Focus on good technique. For all the exercises that we are going to indicate below, it is important to perform the repetitions correctly with less weight, rather than facing a greater load without completing the exercise correctly. You run the risk of doing it incorrectly and suffering an injury that slows your progress.
Perform biceps exercises
The arms have small muscles and do not need too many series to exercise each of their parts. In the case of the biceps, dumbbell and bar exercises will be used to perform contractions, modifying the inclination of the body. The most used exercises will be the curl type.
To perform them, a bar will be held with both hands with the palm up and maintaining a 90 degree elbow flexion; the weight will be raised until it touches the chest. Once you reach the top, you will return to the starting position, descending at a lower speed to achieve greater muscle fatigue. In case of using dumbbells, the procedure is exactly the same. The only difference is that one dumbbell will be raised, and then the other arm and so on. Additionally, the same biceps exercise can also be performed using a pulley. It is important to insist on a correct position of the back. Flexing slightly, squeezing your abdomen and keeping your back straight to avoid any type of injury.
In order to work more specific parts of the biceps, we will train doing what is known as a concentrated curl. Follow the same procedure as the previous exercise but resting your elbows on a surface. The route is shorter but, as its name suggests, more concentrated, achieving a greater impact on the upper biceps. Finally, to complete the workout, or on different days, the same dumbbell curl exercises can be performed by modifying the incline. In this case, we will find different types. We can place the stool at a 90-degree angle and carry out the procedure, or play with the inclination to achieve a different effect on our biceps.
Perform triceps exercises
In addition, among the arm exercises, triceps training also stands out. One of the main exercises is very similar to the biceps curl seen above. In this case, on a pulley, we will take the grip with the palms of the hands facing, maintaining an angle of 90 degrees. From here, we will stretch the extremities until they are completely straight and we will return to the initial position. As in the previous exercises, it is important to keep your back straight and activate your abdomen to focus all efforts on the triceps.
Another of the most recommended exercises to train the triceps is the so-called French press. To do this, you will need a bench and a curl bar. With the correct weight and stretched out on the bench, we will take the bar and place it facing the ceiling with our arms fully stretched. The exercise consists of bending the triceps until the bar touches our forehead and returning to the starting position. It is especially important not to bend the elbows to focus all the work on the triceps.
Finally, to complete our training of this muscle group, we will perform background exercises, with our own weight. They can be done in two different ways. In some training centers, you will find two parallel bars. If they are, we will get on them grabbing both bars with both hands. Once we are in the initial position, we will lower the body forming an angle of 90 degrees with the arms and feeling the work in the triceps. If you don’t have these parallels, don’t worry. It can also be done in the same bank. The grip will be with the hands with the palm down and later, exercising the triceps, we will lower the body towards the ground and return to the initial position.
Perform shoulder exercises
Continuing with the arm exercises, the shoulders are a more complex muscle group. It is divided into different parts but the basic training would start with performing a shoulder press. It can be done both standing and sitting and the procedure is exactly the same? It is about performing the same exercise that is performed in the weightlifting tests of the Olympic Games. With a bar and placing the desired weight, we will place it in front of the shoulders and raise it until the arms are completely straight before returning to the starting position. If you want to tighten the exercise a little more, you can hold the final position for a few seconds. You can do the same exercise sitting down.
In this sense, the shoulder press can also be done with dumbbells. Sitting with the bench forming a 90-degree angle, we will place the weights at shoulder height and raise them up before returning to the starting position. They are exercises that need a precise technique since otherwise the back can suffer a lot. Even the standing shoulder press also requires a lot of hamstring strength. Otherwise, it is advisable to strengthen the legs to be able to execute it correctly, or otherwise, choose to do it sitting down.
Finally, dumbbells offer multiple possibilities with the shoulders. Lateral raises can be performed to train the lateral part of the shoulder or front raises. In both cases, the execution is completely similar. Starting from the weights attached to our body, we will raise them laterally until placing the arms in line with the shoulders or frontally looking for the same objective.
Arm exercises for beginners
All of these exercises are free weights and require some sort of previous gym experience. If this is your first time in a fitness room, don’t worry. We also think of you. Most facilities allow you to perform this same type of exercise on machines. In the case of the biceps, you will find a curl machine where sitting, you will perform the same movement with greater security. The same goes for the triceps. In some cases, you can also find a dip machine that repeats the same move.
For the shoulders you will also find multiple options. In the first case, you have the shoulder press machine that allows you to perform the same movement as with the barbell or dumbbells. Finally, the lateral raise machine to find another support with which to find a way to train the lateral part of the shoulders and be able to complete a training rich in different exercises. The goal is to combine this type of machine with free weight exercises.