Toning the muscles in your arms requires weight training. To tone the major muscles in your arms, which include your deltoids, biceps and triceps, perform exercises that isolate each. Be consistent with your workouts and lift weights at the appropriate volume to overload your muscles and thus stimulate their development.
Exercises
To develop your shoulders, perform shoulder press, upright rows, dips and lateral raises, according to ExRx.net. Although your biceps and triceps are not primary movers during these shoulder exercises, shoulder press and dips also recruit your triceps, and your biceps help to complete upright rows. To better isolate your biceps, complete biceps curls and hammer curls. For your triceps, perform lying triceps extensions and overhead triceps extensions.
Shoulder Exercise Techniques
Stand while completing the shoulder press. Hold dumbbells at your shoulders with your palms facing forward and elbows directly underneath your wrists. Push the dumbbells up toward the ceiling, bringing them together as you reach the top of the movement. For upright rows, allow the dumbbells to hang in front of you with your palms facing your thighs. Bend your elbows and allow them to flare out to the side as you pull the dumbbells up towards your chin. Dips do not require additional weights. Sit on a box or bench and place your hands on the edge on both sides of your thighs. Extend your legs out in front of you or, to increase intensity, place your extended legs onto a second box or bench. Slide your hips forward so that they clear the edge of the bench. Bend your elbows to lower your hips down towards the floor. Continue down until your upper arms are parallel with the floor and then extend your elbows and return to starting position. To perform lateral raises, hold a pair of dumbbells with your arms hanging down on either side of you and palms facing your thighs. Keep your elbows straight as you raise your arms out to the side, continuing until they become parallel with the floor.
Biceps and Triceps Exercise Techniques
Biceps curls and hammer curls utilize the same movements, but are different due to the positioning of your hands. For biceps curls, hold a pair of dumbbells and allow your arms to hang down by your side with palms facing forward. Keep your elbows at your side and bend them to bring the dumbbells up toward your shoulders. Hammer curls are done in the same manner, but you rotate your wrists so that your palms face each other. Maintain this position as you perform the curl. Lying and overhead extensions both utilize only a single dumbbell. For lying triceps extensions, lie on your back on a bench, holding the dumbbell out in front of you with arms extended. Bend your elbows to lower the dumbbell down toward your forehead. Stop just before the dumbbell makes contact with your head and then return it to starting position. Overhead triceps extensions are done while standing. Hold the dumbbell up over your head with extended arms. Bend your elbows to lower the dumbbell down behind your head, and then return to starting position.
Training Plan
Lift two or three days per week on nonconsecutive days and complete a total of eight sets for each major muscle group during your workouts to stimulate muscle toning, according to strength and conditioning professional Dr. Joseph A. Chromiak. Eight sets should be done each for your shoulders, triceps and biceps. For example, to adequately overload your biceps, you could complete four sets of biceps curls and four sets of hammer curls, for a total of eight sets.
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