How to gain arm strength and muscle without weights?

https://youtu.be/nxDoyzJm76k

I second yoga. It's a great compliment to dancing, and there's a lot of upper body work involved.

Planking, too.

OP, I agree with the suggestions above for bodyweight exercises. However, I also wanted to ask--why no weights? Is it because you do not have access to them, or cannot afford them?

If so I just wanted to point out that you can get a lot done even with 5- and 10-lb dumbbells for lifts like bicep or hammer curls, triceps kickbacks, flies, lat raises, rows, plank rows, floor presses, overhead presses, etc. You probably also have a bunch of functional stuff around the house that you can lift--cans of soup, bottles of wine, bags of flour, etc.

Another very useful (and generally not terribly expensive) piece of equipment is a resistance band--you can do a lot of the same lifts with a band, and you can adjust the tension to be appropriate for the lift by moving where you grip it. This would complement a bodyweight program nicely, and would allow you to progress to heavier lifts once your muscles adapt to the current lifts.

Regarding push-ups, you can do push ups with your knees on the ground, or do push-ups against a counter--the easier they get, the more lateral you go until you have developed the muscle you need to start doing classic push-ups.

I am making the assumption that you are not currently at a point where you can start busting out pull-ups--if you don't have access to an assisted machine, a higher-tension resistance band would be helpful in doing lat pull-downs do start building those muscles, then you can graduate to negative pull-ups, or just hang from the monkey bars at the play ground and lift your knees to your chest and lower them.

Regarding your question on how often you should do it, a good general recommendation would be 2-3 times a week, maybe for 20 minutes to a half hour (depending on the exercises you want to do, you can do 3-5 sets, and 10-15 reps in each set). Of course this also depends on how much you are dancing, although I don't think that arm-oriented lifts would do anything but complement your dancing.

As recommended above, you need to eat enough calories to fuel your lifts and build muscle, and you also need to ensure you are getting an adequate amount of protein. One generally accepted rule of thumb is .8 grams per lb of body weight. Getting that protein is very important, and it is something I did not understand at all till I started lifting under the guidance of a trainer about a year and a half ago.

pauladuke0 wrote: »

yoga!

This is a great idea. Yoga sounds light weight, all I know, it kicks my *kitten* everytime I go. @pauladuke0 is spot on

YAYOG

ninerbuff wrote: »

Pushups and inverted rows. Get good at those and you'll get strong. To gain muscle, you need to eat enough calories to encourage hypertrophy. That means a small surplus.

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

These are good suggestions. I can't do a proper push up either, but bodyweight exercises can be adjusted in difficulty. I'm currently doing pushups from my knees to work on strength for a regular pushup. If you can't do that make the angle steeper by putting your hands on a chair, table, or counter. When I did inverted rows I kept my knees bent to make it easier.