ATHE_Transcript_Ep 578_I Do These 6 Exercises Every Week for Strong, Toned Arms
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] I'm J. J. Virgin, PhD dropout, sorry mom, turned four time New York Times bestselling author. Yes, I'm a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover with as many people as I can.
And that's why I created the Well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness.
Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100.[00:01:00]
Are you looking to feel more confident when you go sleeveless? So, you may be surprised to learn that the answer isn't doing bicep curls and tricep pushdowns. Now, if you're looking to get your arms stronger and more defined, then stay tuned. I'm going to show you the exercises I do every week that you can do at home or at the gym that are going to have you pull out those camisoles and tank tops out of the back of your closet and resuscitate them.
First, let's unpack this. Now, beyond the obvious vanity piece, because there are no Spanx for your arms, right? Why should you want to have strong defined arms? Well, here's the scary news. Here's the stats. Starting around age 40, we lose up to 1% of our muscle mass every year. It's about 8% per decade. And 2 4% of our strength And up to 6% of our power, and this starts to double at age [00:02:00] 60, doesn't have to though.
Turns out that between the ages of 50 to 60, 11% of the women in the United States have sarcopenia, low skeletal muscle. You know what I say? Not on my watch. And here's the thing. You might be so concerned about your body fat, but it is way worse. To have low skeletal muscle than to have high body fat.
Thankfully, when you fix the skeletal muscle, you fix the high body fat. So here's the thing with muscle. Muscle is your metabolic spanx. It holds everything in tighter. And it supports a better metabolism because muscle is where we burn fat and muscle requires more energy to be on your body. Plus muscle is a sugar sponge.
So muscle is where we can store those carbohydrates. In fact, we can store the 400 grams, maybe more of carbohydrate in our muscle, but we got to have the active muscle to [00:03:00] do so, right? Muscle's where we use that sugar. When you're doing that hard exercise, you're burning off those sugar stores. And then all throughout the rest of the time, you're going to be burning fat.
So, we gotta be monitoring our muscle because you can't just tell what's going on with your muscle by stepping on a scale. The scale just gives you a number. It doesn't unpack how much of that weight is lean mass and how much of that weight is fat mass. And more importantly, it doesn't say, okay, how much of that lean mass is skeletal muscle.
So, how do we find that out? You want to get a scale at home, a bioimpedance scale. This is a scale that's going to tell you the difference, what's in your weight, right? It's going to tell you what that weight's made up of. It's going to tell you how much is fat, how much is visceral adipose tissue. That's the bad fat, the vat fat.
And how much of your fat free mass is skeletal muscle, because what you measure and monitor, you can improve. Bonus points for you if you go get a DEXA scan, [00:04:00] because a DEXA scan is going to be the best indicator. But then at home, you can monitor this with your bioimpedance scale every single day and then take the average over the week.
So that's the first thing you're going to want to monitor is actually using that bioimpedance scale. The next thing you're going to want to do is monitor your strength improvement. Now, one thing you can do to monitor your strength improvement is to get a hand grip dynamometer. Grip strength is one of the easy ways to tell how overall strong you are, correlates pretty, pretty closely.
And what I started to notice, I was always the person in that family who were like, open the jar, open the jar. And all of a sudden, a couple of years ago, I was like handing the jars to my husband or my sons, open the jar. And I'm like, what happened here? They go, this is not good. This is not okay. So basically a hand grip dynamometer you can grab on Amazon for like 20 bucks is going to give you a score based on your age and you want to be in the strong category, right?
But you can just tell at home, how are you doing with the [00:05:00] grip strength? Because grip strength, low grip strength is correlated with increased all cause mortality. Meaning you get weaker, you die sooner. We don't want this. My goal with telling you all that stuff was to inspire you that you really want to build this strength.
And what's awesome is When you build it, you're going to also look better too. So in terms of thinking of your upper body, I want you to think of it in two different ways. Number one, upper body pushing, upper body pushing. This is things that are pushing or pressing style exercises. And when you do these, you are going to use your chest.
You're going to use your shoulders and you're going to use your upper back and triceps. Anytime you push, your triceps have to do the work. Upper body pulling, these are pulling style exercises, are going to use your lats, your shoulders, and your biceps. Anytime you pull, you use your biceps. What we want to focus on when we're doing [00:06:00] these exercises, and I'm going to focus on are compound movements.
When I say compound, this is a movement that crosses more than just one joint. So, the reason I love compound movements is they're more metabolically active. They require more energy, but they're also more functional. And they also are going to pull in your core. And the reality is, most of your core work should be happening because you're doing these compound movements.
So that's the first part. Now, the next part is… We talked about you lose muscle and you lose strength and you lose power. Now there's actually different training for each of those things, but we're really going to focus on the putting on the hypertrophy will also gain some strength with this. If you weren't just saying, all I want to do is get stronger.
Actually, you want to do low reps, like one to five reps, but we're really going to focus on getting strength and building muscle. And that's more in the range of six to [00:07:00] 30 repetitions. Now, I'm going to really kind of advocate for working somewhere in the 8 to 12 repetition range. It's really easy to do and it's more time effective.
And kind of my rule is if you can't get to 8, lighten the load. If you can go past 12, make it heavier. The key to all of this is that you really want to do the heaviest weight you can handle in good form. Form trumps everything. It's all about technique. And as you're starting to learn these exercises, what you want to make sure first is that all you do to start.
Is get your form down, get your technique down, because if you do it in poor technique or you sacrifice form to go heavier, that is a recipe for injury and injury takes you out. So we want to avoid injury at all costs, but we also got to make sure that you do heavy because heavy is what stimulates hypertrophy.
Heavy is what you need to do to grow that muscle and get stronger. It's called progressive overload. If you do what you typically can do, you're not going to get any stronger. It's what [00:08:00] you already can do. It's why walking doesn't increase strength, we walk. But if you ran up a stair, that's a different thing, right?
You've got to do more than what your body is used to. You've got to overload it. So we're always working on the heaviest we can do in good form, which is probably harder. It's probably more than what you think you can do. Right? We tend to underestimate that. So you really want to push it really hard. The other thing we're going to do is once you get used to doing these, I want you to focus on multiple sets because every time you do a set, your body is only going to stimulate the muscle fibers that it actually hits.
And when you do a set, give yourself a short rest, recover, do it again. You'll tend to pull in more muscle fibers. So we're going to do multiple sets. I like to do one set where I start out easy, get the blood flowing after I've done a full body warm up, and then I'll take it to the hard, and I'll do two, three sets of hard.
If you're listening to this and [00:09:00] you're injured, you know, you can't lift heavy. I have a solution for you and they're called blood flow restriction bands. And what happens when you use blood flow restriction bands is super cool. It actually tricks your body into thinking it's working harder than it actually is.
Because the blood and oxygen get trapped in that area and it induces fatigue more quickly. So it allows you to build muscle and build, build that muscle at a lighter load. So that's the solution for you. If you're like, gosh, I'm just recovering from something, you can use those blood flow restriction bands.
All right, so now we're going to go into the demo. Okay, so I love pushups because there's so many ways that you can modify them. The first step, I'm going to show you a pushup against a bench, but this can also be done against a wall. So literally anyone can do a pushup. So the first one would be against a bench, but this again could also be against a wall.
And the mission critical thing here is that I'm not [00:10:00] sagging, right? That I'm using my core here. My belly button's pulled to my spine. And then I'm coming down to a right angle at my elbows and back up and I'm not locking as I come up and then I'm keeping my trunk very stable. So I'm not letting anything sag.
So that's the first one. So again, that could have been done against a wall that can be done against a bench. So that's going to be an easier version. Now, here's the thing. You might say, I can't do a pushup on the floor. Well, you can with your knees and you can start simply with a tabletop pushup. Look how easy this is.
And it's all about how much weight you always want to have your chest coming between your hands and a right angle at your elbows, but it's all about how much weight is over your hands. This, moving my hands out farther and bringing more weight over is harder, right, than what I just did. Lifting my knees up is harder.
So I can continue to make this harder and harder and harder. The most important thing is that I've got my belly button lifted so that I'm using my core as [00:11:00] well and I'm coming to a right angle. Okay, so a dip is the ultimate tricep exercise and you'll see them at the gym where you can do them free or maybe even weight assisted.
They're an easy one to do if you have a bench at home or even a chair. Now, here's the easy way to do it. Now, the most important thing with a dip is that you don't let your body come out this way. You pull your tailbone back towards the bench or the chair. And you come down to a right angle, and you keep that tailbone skimming against the bench.
This is easier. How do I make it harder? Walk your feet out, right? And you can make it even harder than this. I'm coming down to that right angle, elbows pointing back. I can make this even harder by then putting my feet up on another chair. So plenty of ways to modify this. I can also put my feet up on another chair and put a weight on my legs.
So easy. Just continue to progress the dip. And again, multi joint, really heavy emphasis [00:12:00] on the triceps. So, for an overhead press, I have a bit of form here that I'm a big stickler about. Now, you can do this standing, you could do this seated. Anytime I can do standing, I'm going to prefer it because it just requires more of your body and more of your core.
And when you're standing, you want to have your knees a little soft, your belly button pulled to your spine. And then what I want to make sure when you're doing an overhead press, so it's safer on your shoulders and something called your AC joint, is to have your hands, your palms facing inward and you push up.
And so when I'm doing this, it comes a little in front of my body. As you can see, they're not back here, right? It's a little bit in front and my palms face forward. This is really important. And as I'm doing this, I am pulling my belly button to my spine. Critical. When I think of a really great functional exercise, it's the bent over row.
This is you getting the groceries out of the car, picking something up off the floor. This is an amazing [00:13:00] exercise. It's also pretty advanced because there's a lot of stuff that has to go right. So I'm going to show you a variation from this as well. But basically what you want to make sure of is that your knees are bent.
Your hands stay close to your legs, your belly button's pulled to your spine. So right here already, I'm using my quads and my glutes and my back extensors and my core to keep me here. Then I'm going to rotate my hands and bring my palms up towards my chest and bring it back down. Up and down. So my body is completely stable.
I'm using my core, my glutes, my quads to keep me that way and then I'm doing a bent over row. Super functional exercise. If you've got any back injuries, this is a little bit like oh, I'm going to give you a modification that you can do. Now this is a one arm row. And I see these done all the time at the gym, and my whole graduate work was in biomechanics and spinal [00:14:00] biomechanics.
When I see it done at the gym, I always want to go correct them, and I hold back. But what I want to make sure is when you do this, is that you don't do what I see people do wrong, which is put a knee and a hand on a bench. The reason being is that unless the bench is exactly at the right level for you, now it threw your hip off.
So instead of doing that, you are going to instead think of yourself like a tripod. So here I am over a bench, got my belly button pulled in tight, my knees a little soft. And then I want you to think of yourself just as if you were a tripod. So I'm not over here, my hands were together, I'm moving one hand off, I'm going to grab the dumbbell, and then I'm going to pull it up and back down.
And see how I'm rotating it up? It's called supinating. Works more of your bicep when you do that. And I'm really focusing on lifting my elbow up, drawing my shoulder blade back. But again, I'm not moving all of this. That's super stable. Belly button to spine, knees a little bent, quads [00:15:00] tight. So that is the modification.
All right, next one is an upright row. And with an upright row, what I want you to feel like is that you have a line that's come from the floor. It's drawing all the way up, right? Through your midpoint. And what you want to think of as you do this, I'm going to show you first with no weights. Is that you're pulling your thumbs up and you don't want your elbows to come above your shoulders because that will smash this little bursa in your AC joint.
So you're just going to have your thumbs come up. I'm working my shoulder blades, my shoulders, and my elbow joints. So I'm working my biceps, I'm working my upper back, I'm working my shoulders, my deltoids, all doing this. Again, knees are a little soft, belly button pulled in, thumbs lead the way, and I come up and down.
This is an upright row. And another really functional exercise. But again, this is what you want to avoid, fat, very bad on your shoulder, [00:16:00] your AC joint, thumbs lead the way. One of the best exercises that Jim and I say that you're going to be, no way, is a pull up. And for you, if you can get a pull up bar at home, it may just start with a hang.
Then it might start with a flexed hang before you can actually do any of these. If you have someone that can assist you by you bending your knees and them holding your knees, great. If you don't have any ability to do that, I'm going to show you another thing you can do instead. And that is to use a band to do something called a pull apart that mimics it.
But I'm going to really emphasize that if you can do this, boy, the grip strength you get by having to hang is amazing too. Okay, so here's one way you can do this at home. And here's what's important. And you'll see this done wrong at the gym. Now you'll know when just… Again, they probably don't want you to be their personal trainer, I've learned the hard way.
But, you'll see people at the gym doing a lot pulled in and doing it behind. Do not do that. Very bad [00:17:00] on your shoulder girdle. What I want you to do is pull this part to your chest. Now, keep your shoulders down, bend your knees, belly button to the spine. I'm keeping my arms long, but I'm pulling it to my chest.
I am not pulling it behind me. Don't do that at the gym. Very bad on your shoulder girl. So that is how we mimic a lat pulldown. What's great about these bands is you can get tougher resistance. You can always double them up so they continue to progress with you. I'm going to give you a couple ways that you can use a pull up bar to do this as well.
So you can just start by hanging. This itself is hard, right? You can start with a bent hang. You can see me shaking. That's hard. You can get someone to help support your knees. Or you can just start with, how many can I do, right? And if you can hang and hold, boy, will that help you with that grip strength.
You do not want to be like me discovering, holy smokes, I can't open the jar [00:18:00] anymore. Okay, so a couple important things now that you got what you're going to do. I want to make sure that you don't do this fast. And now I know there's all this information about do a fasted workout because you burn more fat.
Here's the deal. This is not an exercise place, time when you want to focus on burning fat. Because when you are doing hard, intense exercise, your primary fuel source is not going to be fat. It's going to be energy. Glycogen in your muscles, do what works best for you. And what I have found is that if you go in about an hour or two after eating, you will probably be able to perform better.
I always am my own little guinea pig. And so I was doing fasted workouts and then I was like, you know. I started reading a lot about women and fasted workouts and how women do better, not fasted, that were better at using fat during exercise anyway. And when you think about it, if you're at the gym and you're lifting weights, what's happening?
You're [00:19:00] doing something super hard that's going to use glycogen. And I'll actually use a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor to see what's going on and my blood sugar will shoot up. But then you'll shift back and then your body will start to use fat. So you're hybriding back and forth. What I found was when I went in fasted, I wasn't able to perform as hard.
And if I went in about an hour or two after eating, I was in there and I could work out 30% harder. What is going to be the most important thing when you go work out? It's the amount of work that you can do. It's called time under tension. It's how much weight you can lift. How hard, right? So if you're sacrificing that to be faster, to burn more fat, you are really hurting yourself here because remember your primary source here is going to be the carbs that are stored in your muscles, not fat.
Your primary time that you're burning fat is about two to three hours after a meal when insulin's come back down. You've got low insulin, right? And now your body can access stored fat for fuel. That's when you [00:20:00] need to be burning fat or when you're sleeping. When you're at the gym, man, you're going to be pushing it using that glycogen.
Another thing that I really like to do when I'm going in for a workout, kind of a ritual, but I go to my favorite coffee place and I get a big Americano. Coffee is an ergogenic aid. It will help you work out harder. So check that out. See if that works well for you. I either do that or I do a big… Iced green tea.
I like to make sure like an hour or two before that I've really done great with my protein. I've gotten in 30 to 40 grams of protein. Quite often I do like 40 to 50 grams of protein. If it's a meal, I'm taking digestive enzymes, so I'm breaking down that protein well. But I've gotten enough leucine to trigger muscle protein synthesis.
So that if I'm going through and working out. I can actually do what I need to do to build muscle. So you could do that before you go in, after you get in, but make sure you have the protein on board that your body can use and you can trigger muscle protein synthesis. Super duper important. And I [00:21:00] think, you know, I find that like, if I go to about an hour before, then when I'm done working out, everything's starting to hit.
So you could do it. You could have a protein shake after your workout to see what works best for you. Next one is creatine. Now creatine, you might be thinking, Oh, that's for bodybuilders. I don't want to get big. First of all, let's just blow that myth up. I have in 40 years of helping women lift weights.
I've never had a client get big because we do not have the hormones. We don't have what we need to do that. And if let's say I was helping a woman lift weights and get bigger and she was like, I'm too big, we could just back it down. It's that easy. It's not like you're going to wake up one day and you're Popeye, right?
So let's dispel that myth. But here's the thing. As we age, we're We definitely want to think of creatine as one of the things we supplement with. 40 plus, you want to be getting your 3 to 5 grams of creatine in every single day to keep your [00:22:00] tissues saturated with this. Women tend to have 80% less creatine than men.
And if you've been a vegan or vegetarian, even more so. And this is super important for you if you're postmenopausal because it can help both with muscle and with bone. Now, if you're 120 pounds or less, 3 grams is probably fine. The rest of us… Five, important, and if you want to get results faster, five grams, four times a day, and then just stay at five grams.
You need that for the tissue saturation, that's super important, you need to take it every single day. Timing doesn't matter because it's in your tissues. But you need to take it, it will make such a difference in your muscle mass and strength. You will see. So watch that one. And I find the creoquelin one if you're loading is going to help you a little bit with the digestive distress.
After that you should be fine. The other thing I like is this product called GG Geranylgeraniol . It's the building block to a bunch of essential nutrients like CoQ10. It helps with CoQ10 synthesis. It helps with something called MK [00:23:00] 4 synthesis, which is super important for bone health. And it's also a building block for muscle.
So it helps with skeletal muscle protein synthesis. All right. So those are some things that are super important along with making sure that you're getting optimal protein. Remember, you need to trigger muscle protein synthesis by getting enough of the amino acid leucine. And so generally, that is 30 grams of animal protein.
If you're vegan, vegetarian, you're going to need to kick it up higher, more around 40 grams. Right? Or add in some branched chain amino acids to make sure that you hit it. You need the amino acids in there and you need specifically leucine to trigger that muscle protein synthesis. Super duper important.
Okay, now that you've got the workout down, make sure you watch this next video on how to make your workouts more effective. You're going to learn why exercise timing matters, how to burn more calories, why overdoing cardio can totally blow up your goals and [00:24:00] backfire. And the big after workout mistake that can block fat burning.
So check the next video out. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great. And more importantly, that you're built to last and check me out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And my website, JJVirgin.Com and make sure to follow my podcast.
So you don't miss a single episode at subscribetoJJ.Com. See you next time.

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