Arms and Abs

Blackbeauty0201

I need workouts to tone arms and abs

ndj1979

compound lifts

OR

get on a structured lifting program like strong lifts or starting strength ...

brdnw

best ab excercise: hanging leg raises (or knee raises until you can get there).

I fully disagree with people that say "don't do isolated ab excercises and just do compound lifts like squat and deadlifts" bleh.

ovidnine

Here's the thing, you can focus on your arms all you want but you still have a couple hurdles to overcome:

1. You're female. This isn't a knock or a saying women aren't as good as men, they're just biologically different. Women can get well defined muscle (don't worry about getting body builder huge, that's not a risk for a female from just lifting for health), but it takes a lot of effort and ties into the second aspect where body fat is concerned.

2. The really well defined models/athletes you see have insanely low body fat %. And as a female, you're just naturally going to have a higher BF% than guys. Again, biology. So to get more definition, "tone" you need to burn off fat.

So, my suggestion to "tone" your arms and abs is a combination of building muscle and losing fat.

Look into different strength programs like 5x5 (there is a thread dedicated to females doing it), or Starting Strength. There are a ton of other good programs I'm sure, those are the only ones I'm familiar with for beginners. This will help you build muscle and burn calories.

Then, work out your eating program, dont' starve yourself while you lift or you won't build the muscle needed to help you burn off the fat and "tone" your skin.

I love compound lifts, LOVE them, but i also agree with brdnw; JUST doing squats/DLs is not enough. Even big powerlifters do a lot of ab specific work and have ridiculously strong cores even though they're typically covered up by some fat.

Hanging knee or leg raises, planks, and using an ab roller will help.

Good luck and expect it to take time and effort but you can see results if you stick with it!

HamsterManV2

Build muscles in the gym, cut to reveal / be "toned". Which methods you choose is up to you.

For building arms and ab muscle, you can use many things such as dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, leg raises, planks, etc.

For cutting, you can go -20% on your TDEE with diet and/or cardio.

A proper program would really help as a good one will have a balanced routine where you should see long term improvements every month

3bambi3

Hello! Since you still have some weight you want to lose, I'm guessing that by 'tone' you mean you want firmer arms and abs. Spot reduction isn't possible, sadly, but there are things you can do to help yourself along.

Like everyone else said, if you're not already, start a lifting program. Starting Strength, Strong Lifts 5x5, New Rules of Lifting for Women are all great. If you go over to bb.com, they've got a ton of programs as well, and Jamie Eason's 12 week Live Fit program isn't bad and it doesn't require a ton of barbell work so if you're intimidated by starting with the bar, this program eases you into the big lifts.

Lifting while eating at your calorie deficit will help you retain muscle mass, which will make you look more 'toned' when you continue going down in weight.

If you want to add actual muscle mass, there are a ton of helpful posts on how to bulk if you head on over to the Gaining Weight section.

BigGuy47

L sits