Exercise To Make Your Arms Smaller

Many people fear performing weightlifting exercises like biceps curls because they think it uniformly makes muscles bigger. Weight training can make your muscles bigger if you use heavy weights, but lifting in a repetition range of 12 to 25 with light weights increases muscular stabilization endurance without increasing muscle tissue size like training with 12 reps or fewer does.

Biceps

To make the arms smaller, do one biceps exercise per workout to tone the front of the upper arm. Biceps exercises include dumbbell curls, barbell curls, hammer curls, preacher curls and cable curls. To perform the basic biceps curl, stand holding a weight in each hand with your arms straight against the front of your body. Bend your elbows and bring the weights toward your shoulders, then reverse the motion. You can make this exercise easier by putting your back against a wall, or make it harder by standing on one leg.

Triceps

The triceps sit on the back of your upper arm. This area often gets loose on women as they age. Keep this area trim and toned with triceps exercises. Triceps exercises include triceps pushdowns, triceps pushups, dumbbell kickbacks and triceps extensions. Chair dips are a challenging triceps exercise you can do without machines or free weights. To perform chair dips, sit on the edge of a chair and hold the front of the seat with your arms in line with your shoulders. Place your feet on the floor with your knees bent at 90-degree angles. Then, lift your buttocks off the chair and in front of your hands. From there, bend your elbows to lower yourself toward the floor and then push your arms straight.

Shoulder

A workout to tone your arms isn't complete without a shoulder exercise. Military presses, lateral raises and shoulder flexion all sculpt the shoulders. The shoulder press is an easy exercise that works the shoulders with just a pair of dumbbells. To begin, hold the weights in front of your shoulders with your palms facing away from you and your elbows bent into your sides. Press your arms straight above your head and then bring them back in front of your shoulders. You can also use a barbell to perform this exercise.

Cardio

Another way to make your arms smaller with exercise is by doing cardio. Cardio exercise burns calories to promote weight loss. Cardio cannot directly melt fat from your arms, but you can choose cardio exercises that do use the arms instead of just walking, cycling or using a stair-stepping machine. Shadowboxing is an example of an exercise that increases your heart rate and works your arms. Start in a boxing stance with one foot forward and your hands near your cheeks. Alternatively twist your body and punch forward with each arm as you bounce your weight back and forth between feet. Aim for 30 minutes of cardio most days of the week.