The best exercises for your arms aren’t arm exercises at all.

Over the past 30 years that I’ve been working with women I’ve come to learn that building incredible arms isn’t easy. Anytime a client would request better looking arms I’d give her some variation of bicep curls and tricep exercises.

And nothing happened.

I started noticing that the women with the best looking arms were often not doing the typical “arm exercises” at all. And when I started experimenting on myself, I found that…

The best arms exercises are compound moves that incorporate the shoulder joint.

If you’ve been doing bicep curls and tricep dips and are not getting the results you want, this post is for you.

That being said, I do feel that exercises that isolate the biceps and triceps are important and necessary at times. If you’ve got any muscle weakness, you’ll want some dedicated exercises.

In my experience, most women have weak triceps (the muscles on the back side of your upper arms). Therefore, exercises like tricep pressdowns or dips are helpful.

Because the biceps and triceps attach above the shoulder joint, it’s important to include multi-joint exercises to effectively train your arms.

The two images below show how the biceps and triceps both have “heads” that attach above the shoulder.

And you’ll notice that the biceps and triceps aren’t individual muscles at all. They are each a collection of muscles and muscle “heads”.

Check out this episode of Hot Tea with Holly and learn my top 3 favorite exercises that will make your arms look, feel, and function their best.

Stay strong, friend.