weights

lk14040
lk14040 Posts: 90
edited September 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
I have been using the same 5 pound dumbells for a few years now, but my arms do not really have the muscle tone that I want. My arms just kinda seem straight and covered with skin and a little bit of fat. I was thinking of buying 8 pound dumbells, but I know that if you get a bigger weight and do less reps you gain muscle, and if you use a smaller weight and do more, you tone up and loose the fat. I do not want like Madonna arms, no offence to her, but I just want to have a shape to my arms and not have it look manly. Any advice?

Replies

  • lk14040
    lk14040 Posts: 90
    I have been using the same 5 pound dumbells for a few years now, but my arms do not really have the muscle tone that I want. My arms just kinda seem straight and covered with skin and a little bit of fat. I was thinking of buying 8 pound dumbells, but I know that if you get a bigger weight and do less reps you gain muscle, and if you use a smaller weight and do more, you tone up and loose the fat. I do not want like Madonna arms, no offence to her, but I just want to have a shape to my arms and not have it look manly. Any advice?
  • Fab140
    Fab140 Posts: 1,976 Member
    To lose fat, you need to burn it. And to burn it, cardio!

    O, and you won't get 'Madonna arms' (heheheh i agree!!!!) with 8 pounders. You're not seing results because you have to constantly challenge your body. Your body will plateu often if you don't keep things changing. Resistance bands are great because you use stabilization muscles as well as the major ones. And you really do have to resist the snap back.

    A few magazines I turn to for new and interesting circuit routines are 'Shape' and 'fitness'.

    Hope that helped!:flowerforyou:
  • mlillie
    mlillie Posts: 302
    Dont worry about looking manly- we really dont have enough testosterone to get that way and Madonna works out ALOT to get those guns!

    I found that doing as many pushups- first on my knees and then when I got stronger regular style- really made a difference in my arms. I can do them wherever and whenever I want to. It is really cool to feel and count your progress (with increased #) and see the difference.

    I found it worked better than weights for me!
  • frankp
    frankp Posts: 83
    Packing muscle on is really hard work for most. You shouldn't worry about packing on too much muscle because you can just cut back if you get to the size you want.

    You are not going to put on muscle using just 5lb dumbbells or 8lb dumbbells either. These weights might be good for you on some small muscle exercises like curls and lateral raises.

    But for the big muscle exercises they're too light. And to gain muscle you want to do the big muscle exercises like squats, bench press, pull ups (or pull downs), dead lifts, clean and jerk. For these exercises you need more weight. And shoot for reps in the neighborhood of 8 to 15 per set, 2 or 3 sets per exercise. The last reps should really be pretty hard, some work to failure. There's a gym saying, "if you want big arms do squats". This sounds strange, doesn't it? The theory is that you release lots of muscle growing chemicals into your blood stream when you work the big muscles which enables you to get more benefit from your arm exercises.

    30 lb dumbbells may be what your are capable of right now for some of these lifts.

    Take a look at the kind of weight they were using on the show The Biggest Loser.

    And to allay your concern about getting too big... For example, I’m male, 160lbs and I do 3 sets of 10 at the bench press with 135lbs; 3 sets of 15 squats with 135lbs., 3 sets of 10 pull-ups with my body weight. (And these weights are really just kind of average to below average in the gym for males.) I’ve been doing this for a long time, its hard work, and there is no one that thinks I’m getting too big, quite to the contrary actually. Just look at my picture :mad: , I want more muscle.
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