Lets's talk ARMS

Options
My body must hate me because even though the rest of my body is proportionate my arms are not :# . I am not sure if that's because of my PCOS or what have you but I need workouts that I don't need equipment for, besides push ups, that target underarm bingo wings! Anyone have any suggestions to some?

Replies

  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    edited July 2020
    Options
    If you put your arms out to the sides and make muscle stems, flexing your biceps do you still have "wings"?

    Unfortunately most of us have unrealistic ideas of what our bodies should look like. When muscles are not being flexed, they hang slack. If you put your arms out to the side and aren't flexing your muscles, your triceps will naturally hang slack, giving you a bit of a wing. No matter how thin or how muscular you are, this will happen.

    If you've lost a good amount of weight, you might have loose skin on your arms, and it can continue to tighten up for several years.

    If you flex your muscles, and there's still excess fat, not skin under there, then losing a bit more weight might eliminate it.

    If you're looking for good body weight programs, Google Nerd Fitness, Convict Conditioning, or You are Your Own Gym. Yoga or Pilates practices can also help give you a "firmer" appearance. Any well-designed full body strength workout will hit your biceps, triceps, and all the different shoulder chest and back muscles that go into shaping your arms.

    Push-ups are probably the best for arms, you could also do tricep dips with a sturdy chair to specifically focus on that area.

    Hope all that helps :smile:
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,179 Member
    Options
    Tricep push-ups. I know you set no push-ups, but still, tricep push-ups :)
  • redlipzlittlehipz
    redlipzlittlehipz Posts: 28 Member
    Options
    kimny72 wrote: »
    If you put your arms out to the sides and make muscle stems, flexing your biceps do you still have "wings"?

    Unfortunately most of us have unrealistic ideas of what our bodies should look like. When muscles are not being flexed, they hang slack. If you put your arms out to the side and aren't flexing your muscles, your triceps will naturally hang slack, giving you a bit of a wing. No matter how thin or how muscular you are, this will happen.

    If you've lost a good amount of weight, you might have loose skin on your arms, and it can continue to tighten up for several years.

    If you flex your muscles, and there's still excess fat, not skin under there, then losing a bit more weight might eliminate it.

    If you're looking for good body weight programs, Google Nerd Fitness, Convict Conditioning, or You are Your Own Gym. Yoga or Pilates practices can also help give you a "firmer" appearance. Any well-designed full body strength workout will hit your biceps, triceps, and all the different shoulder chest and back muscles that go into shaping your arms.

    Push-ups are probably the best for arms, you could also do tricep dips with a sturdy chair to specifically focus on that area.

    Hope all that helps :smile:

    Thanks for the suggestions!!!! I think I've read about You are your own gym before, it talks about calisthenics right? I've been flexing every morning in the mirror in any hope that they look different but sadly they haven't😞. My arms have always had a disproportionate fat ratio compared to the rest of my body and was told that it might be from the PCOS because it contributes to storing fat in certain parts of the body and was also told it would be harder to lose weight because of it.
  • redlipzlittlehipz
    redlipzlittlehipz Posts: 28 Member
    Options
    LKArgh wrote: »
    Tricep push-ups. I know you set no push-ups, but still, tricep push-ups :)

    I mainly said no push ups because I am tired of having puppy and jam smeared faces in mine and avoiding the kids thinking they can take a "ride" on Mommy lol! Thank you for the suggestion! I'll promptly look up how to do them correctly and try them out!!!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
    edited July 2020
    Options
    kimny72 wrote: »
    If you put your arms out to the sides and make muscle stems, flexing your biceps do you still have "wings"?

    Unfortunately most of us have unrealistic ideas of what our bodies should look like. When muscles are not being flexed, they hang slack. If you put your arms out to the side and aren't flexing your muscles, your triceps will naturally hang slack, giving you a bit of a wing. No matter how thin or how muscular you are, this will happen.

    If you've lost a good amount of weight, you might have loose skin on your arms, and it can continue to tighten up for several years.

    If you flex your muscles, and there's still excess fat, not skin under there, then losing a bit more weight might eliminate it.

    If you're looking for good body weight programs, Google Nerd Fitness, Convict Conditioning, or You are Your Own Gym. Yoga or Pilates practices can also help give you a "firmer" appearance. Any well-designed full body strength workout will hit your biceps, triceps, and all the different shoulder chest and back muscles that go into shaping your arms.

    Push-ups are probably the best for arms, you could also do tricep dips with a sturdy chair to specifically focus on that area.

    Hope all that helps :smile:

    Thanks for the suggestions!!!! I think I've read about You are your own gym before, it talks about calisthenics right? I've been flexing every morning in the mirror in any hope that they look different but sadly they haven't😞. My arms have always had a disproportionate fat ratio compared to the rest of my body and was told that it might be from the PCOS because it contributes to storing fat in certain parts of the body and was also told it would be harder to lose weight because of it.

    Don't flex and *look* at them. Take one hand, reach across and grab the "bingo wing" part on the other arm with your fingers. Get the fingertips up close to the bone so you have a good handful of the wobbly stuff. Then hold on, and flex the grabbed arm. Make sure you get your elbow well above your shoulder, your lower arm bent close to your upper arm, your fist clenched and bent (curled over) toward your lower arm. Take a moment to tighten muscle you can feel, hand/wrist to shoulder, and give some special thought to tightening the back of your upper arm (which is a little harder to bring under conscious control :lol: ).

    If you look at my profile pic, I am *not* doing it. My elbow should be up at somewhere around the same level as my ear, my lower arm should be closer to my upper, and my wrist should be curled over toward the arm, somewhere in the vicinity of my shoulder. ;)

    When you do that, anything that you feel tighten up inside your grabbing hand, on that opposite upper arm, is formerly-relaxed triceps muscle, not fat or loose skin.

    Literally every woman I've walked through this in real life has been misidentifying part of her upper arm, thinking her triceps muscles were fat or loose skin. I'm not saying you have zero fat or loose skin. (I have no idea.) I'm suggesting some of what you're thinking is fat or loose skin is probably actually muscle, because Kimny is exactly right: Relaxed triceps are slack, and will wobble, if you simply extend your arm horizontally and shake it. This is true even for quite fit people, men as well as women.

    ETA: Second the tricep dips. Needs no equipment, is less subject to puppy kisses. Not sure about kid rides. ;)