Toning my arms and shoulders

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swkr622

0
Hi Everyone-

My question is toning my arms and shoulders. As a somewhat feminine girl, I do NOT want muscle or bulk, but just nicely toned arms. My boyfriend said that no matter what, because women don't produce large amounts of testosterone, I will not 'bulk up', but I have seen plenty of girls (and I don't mean female bodybuilders) that have fairly jacked up arms, and I just don't want that.

OK so specific questions:
1-I have an entire weight set (5 lb dumbbells all the way up to 50 lb. sets) and I am pretty puny right now, so am starting off with 10 lb. weights. How many reps should I be doing to start off with? Can I work up to lifting free weights every day since I'm not doing "intense" strength training (no bench presses for me! lol)

2-Should I be pushing myself with higher weights for less reps or more weights with less reps for toning and definition?

Any advice is appreciated!
 
To get 'toned' you need to eat less. Less body fat over the muscles means they'll look more 'toned' or defined.
but you also need some muscle mass, otherwise they'll just look boney.

maybe your definition of 'all jacked' is different from mine. as I've never seen a non-bodybuilder female with 'manly arms'. women cannot really get more than 'athletic' looking bodies without hormone injections.

so, lift heavy, lower reps (6-10 reps a set) and watch your diet.
 
to get a nice toned and defined look use lower weight but high reps. push yourself to lift as much weight as ya can though while doing the high reps. i do four sets of fifteen and then three sets of an even lighter weight and it works out pretty well for me
 
swkr622 said:
Hi Everyone-

My question is toning my arms and shoulders. As a somewhat feminine girl, I do NOT want muscle or bulk, but just nicely toned arms. My boyfriend said that no matter what, because women don't produce large amounts of testosterone, I will not 'bulk up', but I have seen plenty of girls (and I don't mean female bodybuilders) that have fairly jacked up arms, and I just don't want that.

OK so specific questions:
1-I have an entire weight set (5 lb dumbbells all the way up to 50 lb. sets) and I am pretty puny right now, so am starting off with 10 lb. weights. How many reps should I be doing to start off with? Can I work up to lifting free weights every day since I'm not doing "intense" strength training (no bench presses for me! lol)

2-Should I be pushing myself with higher weights for less reps or more weights with less reps for toning and definition?

Any advice is appreciated!
Click to expand...

Your bf is correct; women can't have big muscles because of their hormone balance. The East German freaks during the cold war were chemically aided. Any women with really big and/or sinewy arms spend countless hours daily in the weight room. It doesn't sound like that is a reasonable concern to you.

There are many thoughts on the number of reps and sets, and a lot of women like to keep the reps in the 10 - 15 category, but I think 8 - 10 is a good number. And there are lots of women doing 5x5 programs (5 sets, 5 reps) without getting big muscles.

But, don't work the same muscle group every day. Wait at least 1 day, if not 2 to let the muscles recover. The only muscles you can work daily are abs and cardio.
 
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