Need to Get Rid of Batwings- Need Some Good Arm Exercises Please!

socksy11

Hi Everyone,

I'm 4'11, currently 177lbs and have been overweight all my life. I'm in the middle of a medical weight management program and so far I've lost about 30lbs! I can tell I'm losing inches everywhere BUT my arms.

My arms have definitely gotten bigger with my weight gain and I've got tons of stretch marks. I'm currently lifting here and there but feel I need a better regime to hopefully shrink the fat in my arms and gain the muscle.

I'm not afraid of bulking up at all!

Any women (or men) having challenges with arms? How long did it take to reach your goal? Anyone need skin surgery? I have a fear that I will be stuck with these arms. Everything looks better to me, but I am so ashamed of my arms

Thanks in advance! Glad to be here!

ninerbuff

You CAN exercise your arms to improve muscle size and muscle tone. You CANNOT exercise arms to just make them smaller or force fat to leave the area. It doesn't work that way.
Body fat reduces systematically. If you lose 1%, then you lose 1% from all over. Unfortunately, everyone will have an area on the body that retains fat more than other places. And that's a genetic thing, not an exercise thing.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Okiludy

Could muscle gain in the arms pull up the loose skin even if it doesn't target fat loss?

TavistockToad

look at your family... you may just genetically have bigger arms so they will be the last place the weight comes off.

firef1y72

Sorry but you simply cannot exercise away batwings, I really wish you could because then my arms wouldn't look like this.



What you can do is lift consistantly (I compound lift mostly) to build some muscle to fill the skin (although this takes a long time and eating at near maintenance or above). You can also moisturise the problem area and be patient, the skin may retract some but again it takes time, I've been told I need to give it at least 2 years.

I am seeing an improvement btw, just it's very, very slow.

CarlydogsMom

firef1y72 wrote: »

Sorry but you simply cannot exercise away batwings, I really wish you could because then my arms wouldn't look like this.



What you can do is lift consistantly (I compound lift mostly) to build some muscle to fill the skin (although this takes a long time and eating at near maintenance or above). You can also moisturise the problem area and be patient, the skin may retract some but again it takes time, I've been told I need to give it at least 2 years.

I am seeing an improvement btw, just it's very, very slow.

This. Same deal. Loose skin is loose skin. Building muscle may help a bit to take up some of the slack, and time may help as well...but, yeah. Best thing is to START lifting as soon as you start losing weight, and don't lose weight TOO fast, so you retain as much muscle tissue as possible while you're losing.

Speziface

Pushups. Lots of pushups. Like 10 (or more) every hour during the day. They won't help with loose skin, but you'll definitely improve your muscle tone.

SonyaCele

anything tricep. It wont help loose skin, but you can still have nice looking arms with firmed up triceps.

firef1y72

SonyaCele wrote: »

anything tricep. It wont help loose skin, but you can still have nice looking arms with firmed up triceps.

Gotta say I agree (although I'd still like to lose the actual skin), most people at my gym seem to neglect tricepsand concentrate on bi/hammer curls. I also do extensions, tricep pull down, dips, tricep dips, pull ups plus a nasty exercise the PT gets me to do on the TRX.

SonyaCele

firef1y72 wrote: »

SonyaCele wrote: »

anything tricep. It wont help loose skin, but you can still have nice looking arms with firmed up triceps.

Gotta say I agree (although I'd still like to lose the actual skin), most people at my gym seem to neglect tricepsand concentrate on bi/hammer curls. I also do extensions, tricep pull down, dips, tricep dips, pull ups plus a nasty exercise the PT gets me to do on the TRX.

lol i haven't done a bicep exercise in more years than i can remember.

firef1y72

SonyaCele wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

SonyaCele wrote: »

anything tricep. It wont help loose skin, but you can still have nice looking arms with firmed up triceps.

Gotta say I agree (although I'd still like to lose the actual skin), most people at my gym seem to neglect tricepsand concentrate on bi/hammer curls. I also do extensions, tricep pull down, dips, tricep dips, pull ups plus a nasty exercise the PT gets me to do on the TRX.

lol i haven't done a bicep exercise in more years than i can remember.

I have fun watching the teenage lads (must be 16/17) spending over an hour doing curls while I bench. There's this one lad that must do 5 or 6 sets of 15 of both bi and hammer curls, admiring his guns after each set, then he walks out of the gym without doing anything else. I'll admit I do do curls myself, but only after I've done everything else (except farmers walks), if I have time, if I don't think I've hit them enough in everything else I've done in the week, if I can be bothered. (Triceps I do work every week, because they were most definitely my weak link)

Cherimoose

Okiludy wrote: »

Could muscle gain in the arms pull up the loose skin even if it doesn't target fat loss?

Women gain little to no muscle in a calorie deficit. If you only had a tiny amount of sag, like less than an inch, you might see a slight improvement. Otherwise no. But some of what looks like loose skin is actually fat, so reducing bodyfat will help.

OP - It can take up to 2 years for loose skin to snap back, if it's going to do that.. so wait on getting surgery. If you do strength training - which is still a good idea - follow a normal, full-body program.

AnnPT77

One thing about the arm wings, specifically Be sure you know what you have. I see soooo many women who hold their arms out straight in relaxed fashion & move them back and forth, and call anything that moves "ugly" "fat" "loose skin" on their upper arms.

No. Before you do that, bend your arms upward, curl your wrists a bit, tighten your triceps (the muscles on the back of your upper arms) and generally flex like a body-builder. Make sure those muscles on the upper back of your arm are as tightly engaged as you can get them. Now move your arms around, staying flexed. Whatever moves now might be loose skin or fat (it may also be that you're not very adept at flexing like a body-builder. ).

Relaxed triceps, even on quite fit women, are somewhat mobile. If it isn't floppy when you tighten everything up, it isn't loose skin or fat, it's triceps. You can also check by holding on to the "flap" on one side with the other hand, then tightening up the side you're holding. If you feel it tightening up, it's a relaxed muscle, not fat or skin.

There are way too many women in the world mis-identifying their relaxed muscles as "ugly" "fat" "bat-wing" "chicken-wing" "flaps", and disliking the muscles that help them move. Be sure you're not doing that!

Beyond that, keep working out, especially strength exercises, and getting to a healthy body weight, to improve the rest. If there's loose skin involved, it can take some time to shrink back, even after the weight loss.

(Even at age 61, my loose skin has kept slowly shrinking, even now into my 2nd year of maintenance. Also, while there's still some meaningful amount of subcutaneous fat there, if will conspire with gravity to keep the skin from shrinking much, so the continuing weight loss matters.)

The whole process isn't super-speedy, but it works.

ninerbuff

Okiludy wrote: »

Could muscle gain in the arms pull up the loose skin even if it doesn't target fat loss?

Well theoretically yes, but loose skin that hangs is an indication that a lot of fat was lost. For most with this problem, the amount of muscle needed to fill that void would likely be unattainable unless they were will to regain a lot of weight to achieve that muscle. And it would definitely take some time as well.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

sgt1372

Lose weight/fat and do pushups, pullups and dips as a regular part of your exercise routine.

Okiludy

I asked because I'm starting to get same issue. Lost a fair bit of weight and losing more. I love resistance training so exercise and time not a big issue. Just wanted to know if any way to avoid it getting worse or if it does to correct it on my own with work.

ninerbuff

Okiludy wrote: »

I asked because I'm starting to get same issue. Lost a fair bit of weight and losing more. I love resistance training so exercise and time not a big issue. Just wanted to know if any way to avoid it getting worse or if it does to correct it on my own with work.

You can't dictate how it goes. The body just will do what it does based on stimuli you provide.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

SonyaCele

Okiludy wrote: »

I asked because I'm starting to get same issue. Lost a fair bit of weight and losing more. I love resistance training so exercise and time not a big issue. Just wanted to know if any way to avoid it getting worse or if it does to correct it on my own with work.

since you're a guy, you do have the ability to put on mass on your arms, biceps and triceps to fill in a lot if not all of your loose arm skin, depending on how much loose skin you have and how big you want your arms. but you'll have to eat and lift and then diet again. Us girls generally cant put that much muscle on our arms so we're stuck with all the flabby skin.