How to Get Arms Like Michelle Obama's
Exercise Routines for Building Muscular Biceps and Triceps
Sep 12, 2009
When the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in 1991, women worldwide were admiring Linda Hamilton’s superb physical condition, especially her muscular and sculpted arms. Now, 18 years later, women everywhere are admiring Michelle Obama’s muscular and sculpted arms. So what is the secret? How did these two women achieve such impressive arms?
Hamilton’s six-day-a-week workout regimen with personal trainer Anthony Cortés included running, biking, swimming, climbing stairs, mini-trampoline drills, walking lunges, and abdominal work. However, her workout also included weight training, and this was the secret to her achieving such muscular, sculpted arms (relativestrengthadvantage.com).
This is also Michelle Obama’s secret. According to her long-time personal trainer, Cornell McClellan, with whom she has been training since 1997 at his Chicago fitness studio, “After an intense cardio workout and weight training, Mrs. Obama finishes with the ‘arm-shaping superset’ of tricep pushdowns and hammer curls” (Superville, 2009).
Developing Sculpted Arms
According to Arnold Schwarzenegger (star of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and seven-time winner of the Mr. Olympia title), although most people tend to visualize “bulging biceps” when they think of well-developed arms, “in point of fact the triceps are the larger, more complex muscle group” since the biceps have but two heads, and the triceps, three. As a result, the ideally proportioned arm is usually one-third biceps and two-thirds triceps. However, people must train both biceps and triceps in order to develop muscular, sculpted arms.
Biceps Training for Beginners
Schwarzenegger says that any one exercise alone will not sufficiently develop and tone biceps, so for beginners, he recommends four: barbell curls, dumbbell curls, hammer curls, and one-arm concentration curls. However, regardless of the type of curl performed, certain guidelines apply:
- Movements must be deliberate and concentrated.
- Keep the back straight and do not bend at the waist.
- Do not “fling” bars or dumbbells up or down.
- Use an appropriate weight: it should not be too light because lifting it will do very little to help develop the arms, nor should the weight be too heavy since a too heavy weight can cause muscle sprains or more serious injuries.
- Increase the weight as the biceps develop. For example, a woman might begin with five-pound dumbbells, but once they become easy to lift, she should progress to heavier dumbbells, for example, eight-pounds, and then continue gradually increasing the amount of weight (in two-to-five pounds increments) until she reaches her maximum weight limit.
- Repeat all exercises for two or three sets, each consisting of ten to fifteen repetitions (reps).
Triceps Training for Beginners
According to Schwarzenegger, anytime people straighten their arms against resistance, whether specifically training the triceps or not, the triceps are involved; therefore, many exercises for the biceps also work the triceps. However, since the triceps is “a larger muscle mass than the biceps, it needs more training,” so for beginners, he recommends basic triceps presses and extension movements, for example, pushdowns, kickbacks, and dumbbell extensions.
Working Upper and Lower Triceps
Schwarzenegger says that people need to work the upper and lower, as well as inner and outer triceps, so they should keep certain facts in mind:
- If a weight is held with the thumb up and palm facing downward, the movement works the outside of the triceps.
- If a weight is held so the palm of the hand faces straight, more stress is exerted on the inner part of the triceps.
- If the wrist is rotated, thumbs up and in, as when doing one-arm cable triceps pushdowns, the movement works the inside of the muscle.
Key to Getting the Most Benefit
Schwarzenegger notes that in order to receive the most benefit from triceps exercises, people should do the following:
- For lower triceps, hold the weight and bend the elbow, stretching the triceps as fully as possible; then slowly straighten the arm, but stop after going through one-third of the range of motion, after which this partial-range movement should be repeated for the predetermined number of reps.
- For upper triceps, completely lock out arms during the exercise and hold the contraction for three or four seconds, tensing the muscle the entire time.
- For both upper and lower triceps exercises, rotate the wrist in order to provide increased tension on the triceps.
- Repeat all exercises for two or three sets, each consisting of ten to fifteen reps.
Indeed, Linda Hamilton’s arms were impressive in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and today Michelle Obama’s arms are the talk of the town. In reality, however, any woman can have sculpted arms, and she doesn’t need a personal trainer in order to get them. She simply needs to workout with weights.
Sources:
Schwarzenegger, A. (1985) Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding; New York: Simon & Schuster
Superville, D., How did Michelle Obama get those arms? Personal trainer spills the secrets to Women's Health, Chicago Tribune; September 7, 2009
Linda Hamilton’s Terminator 2 Workout, Retrieved September 12, 2009 from relativestrengthadvantage.com
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