Every woman has her own personal set of upper-body goals. Some want defined arms and strong shoulders, while others want Instagram-worthy biceps. Some simply hope to be able to rock their first pull-up. Still others just want to lose their “bat wings.” (Self-deprecate much?)
But whether you are vying for muscle size, strength, or fat-reduction, chances are that you’ve found your arms to be, well, pretty stubborn. After all, you’ve tried celebrities’ favorite best arm workouts for women, added a dedicated “arm day” to your workout rotation, and seen absolutely zero results.
The fix comes down to one thing, and one thing only: training volume. “Women can handle a lot more upper-body volume than they tend to lift,” explains women’s strength coach Kourtney Thomas, C.S.C.S. “A couple of push-pull and isolation movements once per week isn’t going to be enough to trigger significant change.” (In case you’re wondering, your “volume” is the number of reps you perform, multiplied by the weight lifted during each of those reps.)
After all, there’s a reason that all of the guys in your gym are walking around with huge upper bodies and scrawny chicken legs: they train their upper bodies a lot. (The fact that they haven’t hit leg day in years is a separate issue.)
So how should you turn up the volume and results on arm workouts for women?
Arms Workouts for Women Upgrade #1: Increase Your Intensity
1. Push the Weight
“In general, the biggest thing that I see keeping women from their arm goal is using pink dumbbells for 20 reps,” says Minnesota-based exercise physiologist Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S. “Women seem to be more comfortable lifting heavy weights for their lower body than for their upper body.”
2016 research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology does show that lifting light can trigger muscle size increases similar to those from lifting heavier weights, that’s only true if you’re willing to perform enough reps that your arms are aching and you take yourself to complete fatigue with every set of your arm workouts for women. “Research suggests that the ultimate factor in hypertrophy is volume,” Nelson explains. And yeah, you can achieve high volumes with both light and heavy weights, but heavy weights will get you there faster. (And what woman has time for extra hours spent in the gym?)
If you want to build muscle or just tone your arms (FYI, “toning” is really just a matter of building muscle while burning fat), sets of six to 15 reps work well. Meanwhile, if max strength is the main goal of your arm workouts for women, it’s best to up the weight even further and decrease the number of reps to less than six. Whatever weight you use, it should be heavy enough that you can just barely squeeze out your last rep without breaking form.
2. Increase Your “Arm Days”
OK, so now that we’ve covered the whole “you need to start pushing yourself to craft the best arm workouts for women” half of the equation, the other half involves upping the frequency with which you perform those exercises. “If your arms are a major training goal for you, you need to put more attention there and start skewing the percentage of your total training that targets your arms,” Thomas says. “Right now, upper-body work is literally like 75 percent of what I’m doing. I lift four days per week, and three of those days are upper-body days.”
After making the switch from two to three upper-body days, she notes that it took less than four weeks to begin to see results in the mirror. After all, women’s arms tend to carry less fat compared to the stomach and thighs, meaning you are likely to see definition in your arms sooner into arm workouts for women than you might elsewhere.
At minimum, schedule yourself at least two upper-body training days per week, Thomas says. You can break things out with either one pushing day (bench press, shoulder press) and one pulling day (pull-up, row), or one compound push-pull day, one accessory (bicep curl, triceps extension, shoulder raise) day. Nelson recommends performing compound push-pull exercises in sets of six to eight reps and accessory, isolation-focused arm exercises in sets of eight to 15 reps. And you can actually go even higher with triceps. Because they involve such a small range of motion, it can take a lot more reps to fatigue them to the point you need, Thomas says.
3. Work Your Legs
“Wait, what? You just told me to perform more arm work!” That’s totally true, but you still can’t dismiss the importance of big lifts such as deadlifts and squats—especially if your arm goals require losing some fat, Nelson says. That’s because spot-reduction of fat does not exist. For example, in one Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise study, when 104 exercisers worked one arm for crazy over the course of 12 weeks, MRI scans revealed that the arm that was trained didn’t lose any more fat than the untrained arm.
So, if you want to ditch the fat that hangs onto your arms, you have to work to lose fat, period. From an exercise standpoint, the best way to do that is through large, compound lifts that involve the most musculature possible, Nelson says. Sure, upper-body compound moves such as rows, pull-ups, and bench presses use a lot of musculature for a sizable caloric burn and deserve a spot in the best arm workouts for women. But deadlifts, squats, and even Olympic lifts such as cleans will take that caloric burn to the next level, he says. If you are concerned with reducing upper-body fat, it’s best to incorporate lower-body compound lifts in your routine at least twice a week.
4. Adjust Your Nutrition for Your Goals
The right nutrition will fuel your workouts and support your recovery. But what’s “right” for you depends on your exact arm goals. For instance, while it is totally possible to build some muscle while losing fat, you’ll build the most muscle if you are in a caloric surplus (aka you consume more calories than you burn per day) and you’ll lose the most fat if you’re in a caloric deficit (aka you burn more calories than you consume per day).
No matter what caloric approach you choose, both building strength and muscle, as well as shedding weight from fat (rather than from muscle) requires consuming adequate levels of protein, of which women are notorious for not getting enough. Nelson recommends that women eat 30 grams of protein at least three to four times per day to promote healthy muscle levels and get the most out arm workouts for women. (Aim for a rough daily total of eating half to one gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight.) Reach for complete sources such as eggs, meat, fish, dairy, soy, and quinoa.