Good arm exercises without gym?

[Tim47]

Hey
So I have been doing this exercise routine for about 40 mins every day and going on a 1 hr walk every second day in order to build muscle mass and help with my cardio but it seems like my legs and torso are getting stronger but not much is happening with my arms.

I am wondering if any fitness gurus out there can give me some advice for exercises to increase the muscle mass on my arms without needing to go to the gym or use weights. I don't really need to lose weight as I'm underweight as it is so its mainly just about building muscle.

My routine if you were wondering: 30 seconds of each, 10 second break , repeated 4x. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Squats
Crunches
Push Up's
Running Plank
Burpee
Back Extensions
Plank

[Levin]

Well, take a push-up, a proper push-up is good form, slowly and controlled down, hold at the bottom, slowly and controlled up. Say, 2 seconds down, 1 second hold at the bottom, 2 seconds up. Using the entire range of motion, ie there should be roughly a fists width between your torso and the bottom of the floor at the lowest point, and high at your highest point (obviously not locking your arms out). By your timings, you can do, 6 of them in 30 seconds. In order to build muscle, you need to get to a stage where the last repetition is very hard to do, and your arms and muscles are burning; but if you went any further, you'd be using poor form, using the wrong muscles, and taking ages to recover.

Now a proper pushup like I described is actually quite hard. Many even not particularly fit people could probably throw off dozens of pullups in the typical quick and sloppy way they do it, but in the way I described it, it's a lot harder. And a lot of people might struggle to get to 10. This is what makes body weight exercises more viable.

So I'd suggest the 30 sec thing could end up being more like a cardio routine than a strength building one, if you're not careful. It's not necessarily bad though. Just trying to make you mindful of that. If you're building for strength, your arms should ache to the extent that you wouldn't work on them in the same way more than once or twice per week.

Anyway, for arms, I'd do pushups and pullups. However, you need to know how to vary and progress the movements. There's a workout routine with progressions in book/videos Convict Conditioning. You also might get some ideas and inspirations from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnaLgcJ8kHw

Generally, I'd favour quality over quantity. People do way too many exercises and one loses track of what they are doing, why they are doing it, too much overlap, etc.

[Levin]

pushups*

[Phoenix98]

Well I'm a professional trainer if you need an actual certified individual.

And I'm sorry to tell you think but your actually not going to be able to put on any kind of significant muscle mass or really build up muscle size or muscle weight/lbs without using weight of some kind. Doing cardio and body exercises without any kind of weight is not going to put pounds of muscle on your body, it will actually make you lose weight, fat weight that is.

About all your going to be able to do is lose fat weight and tone your body a bit as well as increase the strength in your muscles but not much more then that.

Though I will tell you that some stuff like pushups will put a some muscle on your chest but it will look odd because your not working the other parts of the chest.

That's what I can tell you as a professional.

[Phoenix98]

Oops pressed send before I was fininshed.

If you want to gain muscle or put any kind of pounds of muscle on your body your either going to have to go to the gym or barrow or buy some equipment to use at home. Also if your focus is going to be on muscle growth/size/strength your diet will need to be altered to be mainly protein and carbs.

Fat should be something that you consume thel east of but your body still needs it so you will need to consume some.

Protein should be next and you need to eat a lot of it because working out literally destroys your body and then repairs it over and over again forcing it to grow and get bigger to handle more work and that requires the building blocks of life which is protein.

Then carbs are what you need to eat the most of as carbs give you energy, fuel, among other things.

Hope this helps.

[Xfitchick]

You can add pull-ups if you find a bar, or be creative with weights. But most of these excercises and the way you do them, is to tone up and not really gain mass. For that, you need weights and also a balanced protein nutrition program.

[Xfitchick]

thanks

[Iron_Man]

Three set's standing barbell curls heavy weights. Move into standing alternate hammer curls 3 sets heavy weight. Move into next sitting preacher curls med weight make sure you do enough reps to feel the burn. You can also add more biceps work. You should get a real good pump from this workout.

[BeerFarts]

Do you have a pull up bar? If so, then you can use that. That's what I use as part of my workout routine!

[posted]

If you want muscle you should get some heavy weights, if you want tone I guess keep it up.

[ThisDudeHere]

I'm gonna leave a post here to come back later as I'm interested in this as well.

[Anonymous]

I think what you're doing now is good