My arms

Push ups work a treat

I, like yourself, cannot do regular pushups but i know there are ways around that. You can do a backward style pushup where you face away from the couch (or other stable surface) and push up off the edge of the couch with your legs out in front of you....also you can do push ups off the wall which sounds kinda silly but its suppose to work as well...hope this helps a little bit...

you can also google alternate ways to do pushups and they can probably get you better descriptions than I did

I agree with Erickirb - light weights and do curls and tricep extensions. Over head presses are good as well. I can only do pushups on my knees lol I can maybe do 5 the "normal" way but have a tough time with those as well.

I have started this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WwK9lWwxnw and lost .5in from each upper arm within 2.5weeks. I do the following videos when I do the above one as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kin6AYFBOKE&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZopL5-P8zgs Good luck

For various upper body strengthening exercises I use a simple exercise band - got mine from Amazon in the UK. Using just the weakest band (described as for the elderly and infirm) I can give my upper body a good work out with out even standing up!

j

I see a huge diference when I work my shoulders- the assisted pull up/dip machine is really good. Don't be afraid to use free weights too, use less weights and high repatitions for a leaner look. :flowerforyou:

Push ups don't work arms that much, they mainly work the chest with a bit of shoulder and triceps getting involved. To target the arms it is best to get some dumbbells and do various bicep curls, tricep extensions, and tricep kickbacks, you can use the same motion and change up the hand/wrist position to target different areas of the same muscle. Google tricep and bicep dumbbell exercises to get a visual of the movements, or try youtube.

Feel free to disagree, but I think anyone who isn't a professional bodybuilder is far better served if they keep isolation work to a minimum (as in maybe a set of curls or pushdowns at the end of an upper body workout...MAYBE). You're far better served by utilizing compound movements (think of exercises that require multiple joints on the body to move). Any of the push or pull exercises will work not only the arms but also the chest, back and shoulders.

In the words of Alwyn Cosgrove, if you can't do a single pullup then you shouldn't be wasting your time with curls. By the same token, if the OP currently struggles with pushups then tricep kickbacks aren't going to help her much. Big muscles first, then small muscles. Our bodies don't typically function in isolation, so why do we train that way? : )

OP: Trying doing exercises that require pushing and pulling in various directions (rows, presses, pulldowns, etc.).

overhead arm claps.

Push ups don't work arms that much, they mainly work the chest with a bit of shoulder and triceps getting involved.

I tend to agree with this, but I think people do press-ups in one of two ways, but to a casual observer you might not pick up the difference.

I try NOT to work my arms doing pressups, mainly because they are usually part of bench-press/pressup supersets, and the way to isolate your chest is to keep your shoulder-blades together (which is also good bench-press technique). It's a quite different feeling, a shorter press and the stress definitely more specifically on the the chest (especially when done on the flat side of a wobble board or whatever you call them). It's useful in the sense that you can probably do more pressups and build up more stress on your chest muscles, rather than small muscle groups fatiguing before your bigger ones.

If you kind of roll your shoulders down to complete the press, with shoulder blades very definitely seperating, you fatigue your shoulders and arms more. So I guess it depends a bit on what you want to do, but I always think of a pressup as an exercise that I want to work my chest and it is usually part of my chest workout day.

Just an aside, it might not be obvious that people that are powerful at bench-press (which is a similar motion to press-up) usually have very strong lats. With good technique you can radically reduce the fatigue on arms and shoulders, and if anything your lats may feel slightly worked. In a way that makes sense since chest/lats are antagonistic muscle groups. And it's also why guys trying to develop their chest should not begin neglecting their lats.