How To Get Toned Arms In Record Time

06 August 2009 | Bodybuilding Nutrition Tips | Tags: Nutrition

I was recently sent a message from another fitness website asking me if I would review one of their posts in their website, entitled “Toned Arms in Record Time”.

Naturally I was curious to see what their article was about, so I followed the link I was sent and read through the three different workouts they suggest for toning up ones arms.

My first reaction was that the lady in the photoshoot was very toned and athletic looking, a nice bit of eye-candy one could say. My second reaction was that the exercises they were touting as being great for toning ones arms in record time were actually not exercises that work the arms directly, moreover they are compound movements that work the shoulders primarily. The exercises they promote are:

standing shoulder press
standing cable row
standing cable flye (leaning lateral raise as they refer to it)

The standing shoulder press primarily works the shoulders, although it does work the triceps, they are not the primary muscle being worked.

The standing cable row, with your arms high as they show, will primarily work the back muscles at the top of ones neck (traps and rhomboids), rear deltoids and will also work the biceps, but not primarily.

Performing a standing cable flye, one handed whilst leaning off the machine will work the shoulders primarily, if you pull the cable to your side it will primarily work the lateral delts, if the cable is pulled to your front it will primarily work the anterior delts. There will be some work done by the forearms in steadying the handle, and a small amount of work done by the biceps/triceps in keeping your arm straight, but I would not refer to it as a good exercise to develop (tone) the arms.

If I were looking to tone up my arms or someone esle’s arms for that matter, I would recommend that they perform compound exercises for the whole body, which will utilise the biceps/triceps. Exercises such as bench press, shoulder press, seated cable rowing, wide grip pulldowns and chin ups. If they were still wanting to do some “extra” work on their arms, I would recommend dumbbell curls for biceps and cable pushdowns for triceps.

If the aim is to build muscle then you will need to work in the 6-12 rep range, working out 1 -2 times week. If the aim is simply to tone and firm up the arms, work in the 20 - 30 rep range and exercise 3 - 4 times a week, combined with some steady state and interval training cardio work.

All of this is completely useless unless you are getting the right nutrition, something most people are too ignorant to understand or too arrogant to accept that they need to change their diet. For a lean, toned look you need to eat a diet that promotes testosterone in the body, as well as not blunting the raised testosterone levels that you will achieve from working out.

To achieve this, eat a high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diet, ensuring that any carbs that are consumed are low GI - read the back of the packets and if the nutrition information states the levels of sugar in the carbohydrates is more than 10% of the carbs avoid it like the plague. If you have the money, buy whey protein powder as it is high in protein and low in carbs (and fat usually), but allows you to keep a high protein diet without any simple carbs and the unwanted blood sugar spike that they produce.

I find it’s just easier to avoid carbs altogether, preferring to eat fats for energy instead, this is because all fats are low GI, thus affording me a steady release of energy, which has the added benefit of never feeling tired like I used to when I ate a high carb diet.