Everyone once in a while someone asks me how to lose weight in a certain area, that’s no different when men say they want bigger arms for example. It’s very hard to target one area in the body, it doesn’t matter if it’s for muscle gain or weight loss, I’d say more than anything it’s a common myth to say you can target the back of your arms and only tone up there.
Balance to avoid injury
Then you have the men for example who might want a bigger chest but as much as we don’t want to hear it, it doesn’t quite work that way. If we’re targeting your chest you need your arms to do so, which means you’ll be working your arms out as well. It’s slightly different for men because you can do isolation curls for example if you want to target the biceps but if you’re doing that on a consistent basis and say not working out your triceps for example you’ll have an unequal balance and this is when injuries come into play. You really want to work out your entire body equally (unless you’re involved in fitness or bodybuilding competition). You certainly don’t want imbalances especially if it’s the opposite muscle group ie. Biceps and triceps or back and chest; both sides should be worked out equally.
Burn fat efficiently
When it comes to women that mainly want to tone up or lose body fat again it would be a good idea to work the whole body. You can do certain things like leg raises to target the lower abs, you can also do dips to target the back of your arms but I don’t think anyone that knows what they’re talking about could honestly say that’s the only area you target or the only area that will see results if you perform those certain exercises (ie, you need your legs for leg raises not just your lower abs/you need your shoulders for tricep dips so those will be working as well).
Our body is incredibly good at strengthening the weakest part of our body. So for example if we struggle to do a sit up, the weakest part of our midsection will be working very hard to keep up with the strongest part (there are different muscles to our abs or midsection – transverse, middle, upper, lower, oblique’s).
Tone Up
This is why I always recommend full body exercises or mulit functional exercises for those that want to tone up, burn fat and or lean out. The only thing a bicep curl is good for is making your biceps bigger which most of us aren’t looking for. A curl/press/squat for example is efficient, can help you burn fat and strengthen your muscles all while working a number of different muscles. To me it doesn’t make sense (again unless you have the goal of a bigger bicep) to stand and do curls when your goal is to tone up.
Balance
Look to work out your whole body equally if you want to strengthen each muscle group, tone up and burn fat. Leave the isolated muscle groups for those looking to reach certain goals that pertain to that exercise. Try mulit functional exercises, use less rest in between sets and you’ll be much better off than only looking to target a specific area. You’ll tone up in the areas you want it, it’ll come, give your body a chance to adjust to the exercises and quality food you’re fueling your body with.
