I need advice on how to tone this area right here...see pic

I am in the same boat! I ordered my dress yesterday and it is also strapless. I need to tone the same areas as you, plus my back (it buldges over the dress a little). I'm going to do plenty of push ups and I just started 30 day shred which feels like it will be good for those areas.

Lift heavy and stay in calorie deficit. 5lb weight won't do it, so don't waste your time.


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Check out the book New Rules of Lifting for Women. Very specific, and a lot of women here follow their guidelines.

Also, nerdfitness.com has a lot of useful info.

Before I started lifting heavy (just recently) I saw results from lifting moderate (up to 12.5 dumbbells) with Nike Training Club, an ipod app.

You can do a lot with diet alone, these other ideas will just enhance that.

Ok, so if 5lb won't do it - then what do you suggest? I have a shattered wrist injury from almost 2 years ago that has left behind some nerve damage. I can do push ups but not much more than 20-25 before my wrist starts hurting from the pressure at that angle.
I was under the impression that I should go light on the weights and just do more of them, but you are suggesting liting heavy. Can you give me more detailed advice? Any exercises in particular that will/won't work?

By heavy, I mean relative to your strength. Whatever exercises you do, do 3 sets of 8 repetitions with as much weight as you can handle for those 8 reps.
Stick to basics: barbell curls, dumbell curls, pressdowns, tricep extensions.

Light weights build muscle endurance and do little to "harden"up the muscle you're trying to work out.

If you do a WHOLE BODY workout, you can get faster results because you will raise your RMR(resting metabolic rate) and burn more body fat at rest.


A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I started using kettlebells and it has created some definition in my arms that I love. I started with a "sissy" 4 lb. weight and have increased to 7 lbs. I know many start with a 10 lb. weight, but it worked for me. I specifically bought a cardio/kettlebell DVD: kettlenetics.

By full/whole body: that means don't just focus on changing the places you want to see improvements, it means training all your major muscle groups. So, in your case not just upper body but lower body as well. So, not just push ups but adding in squats and dead lifts, etc.

New Rules of Lifting is a good book, but I like the Women's Health Big Book of Exercises a bit better not for the advice but for the descriptions of exercises with tons of photos and instructions. I don't lift at a gym and don't have room for a barbell and weight bench in my apartment, so NRoL for Women has a program that isn't easy for me to follow. The Big Book also has the exercises broken down by body parts, so you can build a full body workout from looking at all the exercises and their variations--that's also what I meant you could do with checking out strength training exercises online--build your own routine. That's not perfect and it takes a lot of work. It's way easier to pop in a DVD, but I've found strength training is worth spending my time on.

And yes, extra protein is mandatory for muscle maintenance and repair if you're eating at a deficit. You can fiddle with your macro percentages on MFP, for example, I have my protein set to 40% of my caloric intake. I rarely make it, but I am slowly getting it up higher and higher. So, paying attention to how you get your calories can be beneficial in how you are able to reshape your body.