Vital Arm Workouts For Women: A Guide Designed For Beginners
When starting out with arm exercises, it can be difficult to know what muscle groups to work and in what order. Focusing too much on the same muscles can lead to quick burnout and not focusing on muscle groups enough can lead to toning imbalances.
When considering the best arm exercises for women; it is advisable to create a routine that works the biceps, triceps, inner and outer forearms, the shoulders, and the wrists. There are plenty of Village Gym classes available to help with toning the arms, but if you’re just starting out, breaking yourself into more low-intensity workouts first is perfectly fine!
Read on for Village Gym’s arm workouts for women and begin your fitness journey the right way.
The Arm Exercises For Women We’ll Cover:
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Bicep Curls
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Push Ups
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Tricep Dips
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Isometric Weight Holding
1. Bicep Curls
Bicep curls are one of the best dumbbell arm workouts for women and for good reason. They are very effective at building muscle at a reasonable pace. What makes them especially beginner friendly is that they are low-intensity exercises that are easy to do, no matter if you are at a gym or at home.
Do note, however, that you’ll need to buy equipment for this if you choose to workout at home. If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, Village Gym offers a variety of dumbbells for bicep curls at our locations - as well as training professionals on hand to assist.
How to do bicep curls:
[insert video example]
Step by Step Instructions:
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To begin with bicep curls, choose a weight that you can comfortably lift. As a beginner it is important to develop muscular endurance before refining muscular strength. Start with a 1kg weight and keep adding 1kg until you have a reasonable weight you can train with. The weight you use will depend on how naturally strong you are, but generally, going over 4kg as a beginner is not advised.
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Bicep curls can be performed standing or sitting. When you are comfortable, extend your arms down towards the floor and let them hang with the weights in hand. At your own pace curl your hand towards your shoulder joint.
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When curling, keep your back straight and maintain an upright posture. This will help prevent your back from sharing the tension from the curl and help your bicep lift the majority of the weight.
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Correct form includes curling the weight towards your shoulder joint until your elbow is fully hinged, holding the weight in this position briefly, then gently lowering the weight back to its original starting position. Avoid dropping the weight quickly, as this can cause injury.
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Repeat as many times as desired.
Top Tip: slowly letting the weight down is just as effective as raising it when curling. In addition, when training muscular endurance, you’ll want to do a low weight with up to 20 repetitions. For muscular strength you’ll want a slightly heavier weight for fewer repetitions (such as 5 or 10 reps).
2. Push Ups
A versatile and simple exercise that is brilliant for toning the arms and building strength in your upper shoulder joints are push ups. Most upper arm exercises for women will use some kind of gym equipment and this is what sets the push up apart from other exercise options.
A push up can be performed practically anywhere, making them an excellent option for home workout routines as well as gym workout routines.
How to do push ups:
[insert video example]
Step by step instructions:
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For a push up, before you begin, you may want to consider using a padded mat (such as a yoga mat) to protect your hands when pushing up.
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Start on your hands and knees, placing your hands slightly wider than a shoulder width apart with your palms face down against the floor. Extend your legs downwards and hold a stationary position; your body parallel to the floor. When in this position it is important to keep your shoulders aligned and your back straight. Avoid arching your back towards the ceiling or sagging your stomach towards the ground. Before doing your first push up ensure your legs are roughly shoulder width apart. Your feet being too far apart or too close together will make it more difficult to balance.
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When in this position, gently bend your arms and hinge them at your elbow joint to lower your body towards the ground. Lower your body until your nose is almost touching the floor and hold this position briefly.
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Push towards the floor and raise your body up until your arms are fully extended.
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Repeat the desired amount of times for your routine.
Top Tip: if a full push up is too difficult, you can do push ups while on your knees to build your bicep strength before trying full push ups. Alternatively, if normal push ups are too easy, you can resistance train by doing push ups on your knuckles; this will improve wrist strength.
3. Tricep Dips
Another great arm toning exercise for females is tricep dips. The wonder of tricep dips is that they allow you to use your own bodyweight to train your arm strength, making it one of the go-to tricep exercises for women.
These tricep dips are a great addition to any routine as they can be performed anywhere you have a step, chair, bench or ledge to aid you.
How to do tricep dips:
[insert video example]
Step by step instructions:
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Using a ledge, chair, or bench, begin by sitting on the surface and placing your hands around the edges of the surface near your hips. Your fingers should be facing forwards.
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Stretch your legs out towards your front, slowly, allowing your hands to support your bodyweight.
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After your legs are fully extended, lift your body from the surface in a forwards motion until your arms are supporting your full bodyweight.
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Now bend your arms at the elbow joint until they are roughly 90 degrees and lower your body down slowly. Hold this stance at its lowest point briefly.
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To finish one repetition, push through your hands and palms until your arms straighten.
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Repeat for your desired amount of repetitions.
Top Tip: if you opt to use a bench or chair, ensure it has enough weight to support your exercise. A chair or bench that is light or weighted to one side can tip over. Be careful!
4. Overhead Press
For our final exercise for creating an excellent arm day workout for women is the overhead press. This exercise, like the others on our beginner’s guide, is ideal for use in both home workout environments as well as gyms.
The overhead press is a versatile exercise that will target muscle groups around the shoulders and upper arms. While this workout can be performed with any weighted item, it is often best to use dumbbells - these usually come equipped with better grips and are weighted correctly, allowing you to track progress.
How to do an overhead press:
[insert video example]
Step By Step Instructions:
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Begin by choosing a weight you are comfortable with. For beginners, unless you’ve had prior training, we’d recommend going no higher than around 2-4kg.
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Take a weight into each hand and bring them up to shoulder level. Ensure your elbows are fully hinged and your palms are facing forwards.
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Push upwards and extend your arms to their full length. While doing so, ensure your back is straight and posture is correct. This will minimise any potential injuries as well as helping with injury prevention.
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Lower the weights back down to their starting position. Do this slowly to prevent any injury and to maintain control over the weights.
Like with most muscular training exercises, for repetitions, you’ll want to do a few heavy repetitions to train strength and many light repetitions to train muscular endurance.
Top Tip: if you are finding this exercise difficult to balance, only train one arm at a time and alternate arms.
Workout Your Way With Village Gym
Find your nearest Village Gym today and take your arm workout to the next level. There’s nothing wrong with working out at home, and this is a great way to stay fit if you are starting out! But if you’re wanting to find an environment that will help you grow towards attaining your fitness goals then Village Gym is for you. We welcome everyone through our doors.
We provide all the state-of-the-art equipment you’d need, and not just for arm workouts. With a vast range of machines to choose from, as well as personalised plans available from our certified personal trainers, you’ll reach your goal in no time at all!
Why not book a tour of your local Village Gym now? Grab a Starbucks on site as our fitness professionals show you around.
FAQs About Arm Exercises
What Should I Do For Arm Day At The Gym?
When wanting to focus on a workout specifically tailored to arms, you’ll want to train in three main areas: joint flexibility, muscular strength, and muscular endurance. The above exercise will assist you in training all three areas. You can make adjustments to the above exercises (as discussed above) depending on your primary focus, be it flexibility, strength, or endurance.
It is important to maintain a balanced workout that improves all these aspects.
What Is A Good Arm Workout For A Beginner?
While all of the discussed exercises above are ideal for beginners, the push ups and tricep dips are the most beginner friendly. This is due to the fact that they use your own bodyweight to improve your arm muscle groups and require very little investment monetarily.
How Do I Tone My Flabby Arms At The Gym?
When it comes to toning your arms, no matter if they are flabby or not, you’ll see improvements with consistent arm-based workouts. That being said, beginning with workouts that are tailored more towards muscular endurance is a great low-intensity way to begin training flabby arms.
At our gyms, you’ll have access to all the equipment you’d need to tone to your heart’s content!
What Weight Should A Beginner Arm Workout Be?
The weight that you will use for training your arms will vastly depend upon your natural strength. If you are completely new to training, it isn’t advisable to go above 5kg when training.
An ideal weight to begin with is around 1-3kgs.
