Seeing weights or machines employed in traditional arm workouts is a usual sight, yet it’s entirely feasible to train and strengthen your arm muscles at home without the need for costly equipment.
These exercises have been designed to target three specific areas of your arm muscles – your forearms, biceps, and triceps – and can easily be done at home, without the need for any gym membership.
Tricep Exercises at Home
This series of tricep exercises rely on the traditional plank position as the main starting point for all of them and provide a great overall workout for your triceps as well as your core and shoulder muscles.
The Tap
Position yourself into a raised plank to start with, keeping your hands apart, your shoulders over your wrists, and your hands flat on the floor. Your legs should be stretched out behind you. Once in position, engage your core ready to start.
Take your right hand off the floor and reach over to tap yourself on the left shoulder. Make sure you keep your hips and core still while doing this movement. Then repeat on the other side of your body.
The Down
Start in the same raised plank position described above. Once in place, gradually move your left forearm down until it is resting on the floor, then do the same with your right forearm. Then reverse this to move back up into raised plank. Make sure your hips are still.
The Push
Again, start off in the raised plank position and once ready, bend your arms at the elbows and lower downwards so your chest is heading to the floor. You can bend your knees down as well if needed. Then push your body back up to bring your arms into a straight position.
The Downward Push
For a more difficult version of the push exercise, try this one. Put your toes in an elevated position, on a step or bench. From there, put your body into the raised plank position. Next, bend at the elbow to move your chest down towards the ground. Push back up to straighten your arms.
This series of bicep exercises can be done without equipment or if you have regular dumbbells or adjustable dumbbells at home then you can add those in for extra effectiveness as well. But even without the weights, these movements will keep your biceps in good condition.
The Curls
Stand up straight and keep your feet apart. Take a dumbbell in each of your hands and start with your arms stretch down at your sides. Gradually bend your elbows to bring the dumbbells up to shoulder level.
As you curl your arms up, give your biceps a squeeze, before straightening the arms back down again into the starting position.
The Reverse
This time you are going to reverse the curl movements. Start in the same upright position, hold your dumbbells at the sides using an overhand position instead. Pull them up to shoulder level and then lower down again. Don’t forget to squeeze your biceps during the curl.
The W’s
Start in the same upright position and then stretch your arms down by your sides, gripping the dumbbells in an underhand position. Your palms should be outwards facing. Raise your arms to a 45-degree angle to make a W-style shape, before bringing them down again.
Forearm Exercises at Home
Your forearms are crucial to helping support your biceps and triceps so it’s vital to exercise these particular muscle groups as well. They need to be exercised more frequently as the forearm muscles are small and stiff.
Push-Ups
On a soft mat, lower your body into an all-fours position, stretch your legs out straight behind you and make sure your body is in line. Start to lower your body down at the elbows. As you get closer to the ground, raise your body back up into the start position. You may also use push-up bars for this routine.
The Crab
This exercise starts with sitting on the floor with your hands resting on the ground next to your body. Raise your hips off the floor, with your knees bent, keeping your feet on the floor and your thighs raised parallel to the ground. There should be a straight line from your knees to your shoulders. Walk forwards for two minutes in this position.
The Fingertips
Start out in the normal position for push-ups but then lift your palms and your feet, so your body is balancing on your toes and fingertips. Lower your body down and back up to the starting position. This is much harder than a regular push up so move to this option after you have got some practice doing regular push-ups so as not to cause yourself any arm injuries at all.
