The primary muscles in your arms are your biceps, triceps and forearm. The biceps are on the inner portion of your upper arm, and the triceps can be found on the outer portion of your upper arm. Your forearm is on the outside of the lower arm. Together, these muscles help your body engage in daily activities, like picking up a gallon of milk, or physical activity, such as shooting a basketball.
Forearm Exercises
The forearm may be overlooked during weight training, but this small group of muscles is responsible for a lot of movement. According to Shape Fit, the forearm plays an integral role in throwing balls, gripping objects and fine motor skills, such as drawing. For each exercise, complete 10 to 15 repetitions.
Dumbbell wrist flippers are a basic exercise that is completed with dumbbells. To perform this movement, stand with a dumbbell in each hand, bend your arms, lock your elbows at your sides, face your palms upward and slowly rotate your wrist to face your palms downward. Continue flipping your palms face up to face down.
Wrist curls can be done with dumbbells or a barbell. To execute this exercise, sit on your knees behind a bench, rest your forearms on the bench, allow your hands to hang over the edge and hold your weight in your hands. To perform a palms-up wrist curl, start with your palms facing upward, bend your wrist to lower the weight and curl the weight back upward. The palms-down wrist curl exercise is done in the same manner, except you perform the exercise with your palms facing down.
Biceps Exercises
The biceps are responsible for movement of the elbow and forearm. To build endurance in your biceps, use a weight that allows you to complete eight to 12 repetitions. For building more muscle mass in the biceps, select a weight that you can only complete six to eight repetitions with.
The most common exercise for the biceps is the curl. To perform a curl stand with your arms at your sides, and face your palms away from your body. Keep your upper arms stationary during the entire exercise, bend at the elbow to lift the weight toward your shoulders and slowly lower back down.
Variations of the curl include the hammer curl (palms face sides of the body), incline curls (standard curl performed while lying on an incline bench) and supinating curls (standard curl with outward wrist rotation at the top of the curl movement).
Triceps Exercises
The triceps are engaged during elbow flexion, which can come in handy during sports or chores. Training the triceps is just like training the biceps, select the appropriate weight for either endurance (eight to 12 repetitions) or muscle mass (six to eight repetitions).
The triceps extension exercise is easy to master and will help define your muscles. To execute this exercise stand upright and hold a dumbbell in both hands at the top of the weight. Place the weight behind your head, slowly lift the weight upward until your arms are straight and lower back down.
Other triceps exercises include triceps kickbacks and triceps pushdowns. Kickbacks are done in a standing position while bent over at the waist. Lock the upper arms against your ribs, start with the weights near your shoulders, kick the weight back until your arms is straight and return to the first position. Pushdowns involve locking the arms at the sides while pushing down on a cable pulley attached to a weight machine.
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