What muscles are we targeting?

Some muscles are used more often than others, and as a result, can grow larger and become stronger faster. Your arms contain multiple muscles, which extend from your hand and wrists to your shoulders. Some of these muscles are used more frequently than others, which can cause them to grow larger and become stronger at a faster rate.

Not only do the muscles in your chest and shoulders play key roles in many important arm movements, but they also are essential for other routine body movements.

The arms themselves primarily include the following major muscles

• Biceps brachii. This classic muscle is responsible for flexing the elbow and externally rotating your hand and forearm.
• Coracobrachialis. This muscle spans from your shoulder to the middle of your upper arm until just below your elbow. It assists in raising, or flexing, your upper arm.
• Brachialis. The brachialis is a strong elbow flexor that spans from the middle of your upper arm to just below the elbow and plays a major role in flexing your elbow.
• Triceps brachii. This muscle has three distinct heads, each of which begins at the shoulder and spans the backside of your upper arm until just below the elbow. It’s responsible for extending your elbow when you straighten your arm, as well as extending your shoulder, or moving your arm behind you.

Other muscles besides the arm muscles contribute to arm strength, such as the shoulder, upper back, and chest muscles.

These muscles, which are not traditionally viewed as arm muscles, are essential for almost any movement or force required for arm-related tasks.

These muscles include:

• Pectoralis major. The pec major is responsible for most of the movements of the arm, including pushing, lifting the arm, and bringing the arm down from a flexed position. It also adducts the arm from a horizontal position and assists with the rotation of the upper arm.
• Pectoralis minor. This muscle is an important scapular stabilizer.
• Posterior shoulder muscles. These rear shoulder muscles move your upper arm backward, such as during pull-apart motions.
• Deltoids. These muscles around the front, side, and back of the shoulder move your arm upward in all directions. They’re also responsible for the rotation of the upper arm.
• Rotator cuff muscles. These muscles are important shoulder stabilizers, but they also assist with initiating arm movements.
• Latissimus dorsi. This muscle in your upper back moves your upper arm downward, in, or backward, such as during a lat pulldown or rowing motion.

It's important to focus on strengthening all the muscles in your arms to ensure they're proportional and able to move in every direction.

SUMMARY

The muscles that enable arm movements are situated in the front and back of your arm, as well as in your chest, shoulders, and upper back.

The 8 best bodyweight arm exercises

The following exercises will help you tone your arm muscles without the need for added weight. The exercises range from easy to difficult. The exercises may involve multiple muscle groups (including your core muscles), as well as your arm muscles.

To emphasize, without some sort of external support for your back and biceps, it is very difficult to effectively work on strengthening those muscles.

When you do these exercises, squeeze your arm muscles tight during each repetition. This will help you work the muscles more,and make your workout better.

Arm circles

This shoulder exercise focuses on the biceps and triceps muscles and isometrically strengthens them. You can make smaller or larger circles, but ensure that you maintain tension throughout the full set.

To perform arm circles:

1. Stand tall with your arms straight out to your sides and your muscles contracted down the length of your arm.
2. Slowly make circles with your arms by rotating them around your shoulders while keeping them straight and your elbows locked with tension.
3. Perform 3 sets of 10–20 repetitions in both directions. You can perform sets of large or small diameter circles to slightly change the effort required.

Arm front raises

The purpose of this exercise is to target the front of your shoulder and improve the strength of your biceps and triceps. To make it more challenging, you can add weight to it by grabbing two cans of soup or two water bottles.

To perform arm front raises:

1. Stand tall with your arms out to the front, locked out straight with your thumbs toward the ceiling.
2. Raise your arms overhead while keeping them straight and locked out until they point straight up overhead, with your upper arms blocking your ears when viewed from the side.
3. Slowly lower your arms to the starting position.
4. Perform 3 sets of 10–20 repetitions.

Arm lateral raises

The purpose of this exercise is to strengthen the top of your shoulder by isometrically strengthening your biceps and triceps. To make this more challenging, you can grab two cans of soup or two water bottles to add weight.

To perform arm lateral raises:

1. Stand with your arms at your sides and your palms facing inward toward your hips.
2. Keep your arms straight and raise them to the side until your body makes a “T” when viewed from the front.
3. Slowly lower to the starting position.
4. Repeat for 10–20 repetitions.

Wall angels

This exercise strengthens the shoulder and triceps and improves shoulder mobility. The benefits of this exercise are many, but they are especially helpful for those who suffer from poor shoulder mobility. This exercise can help to improve your range of motion and make your shoulders stronger.

To perform wall angels:

1. Stand with your back against a wall with your knees bent and your feet roughly 1–2 feet (about 0.5 meters) away from the wall. Your head, upper back, and tailbone should be in contact with the wall.
2. Bend your elbows to 90 degrees and raise your arms until your upper arms are parallel to the floor, as if you’re putting your hands up.
3. Extend your arms overhead until they’re straight. Aim to keep your arms, head, upper back, and tailbone in contact with the wall.
4. Return to the starting position.
5. Repeat for 3 sets 10–12 repetitions.

Downward Dog to plank

This exercise strengthens the muscles in your chest, shoulders, and arms. It’s a great way to start building strength in the upper part of your body.

To perform Downward Dog to plank:

1. Begin in a pushup plank position with your hands under your shoulders and your arms straight. You can start with your knees on the ground if the pushup plank position is too challenging.
2. Raise your hips and press backward with your arms to arrive into the Downward Dog Pose. If you started from your knees, you will raise your knees off of the ground once you have pushed back enough to do so.
3. Stabilize briefly in the Downward Dog Pose before returning to the starting position.
4. Repeat for 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions.

Plank tap

This exercise is a variation of the plank that strengthens your shoulders, triceps, and biceps.

To perform the plank tap:

1. Begin in a pushup plank position with your hands under your shoulders and your arms straight. Keep your spine neutral. To make the exercise more challenging, keep your feet together. To make it easier, widen your feet.
2. Bring your left hand up to your right shoulder and tap it before returning your hand to the floor.
3. Repeat with your right hand and left shoulder.
4. Perform 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions on each side.

Pushup

A pushup is a classic exercise that strengthens the chest, shoulders and triceps, with no equipment required. You will also need to engage your core to maintain the position, adding a bonus core component to this arm exercise.

Doing pushups on your knees is an easier variation if the standard one is too challenging.

To perform a pushup:

1. Begin in a pushup position with your hands under your shoulders, spine neutral, and legs straight. If needed, keep your knees on the ground to reduce the difficulty level.
2. Lower your entire body in unison toward the floor by bending at the elbow. Keep your elbows close to your sides or at about a 45–degree angle. Lower your chest until your upper arm is parallel to the floor.
3. Push through the floor to drive back to the top position, maintaining control the entire time.
4. Repeat for 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions. If the sets become too difficult, you can revert to the knees-down variation.

Triceps dip

You can do this dip variation by sitting in a chair. This exercise is mainly for the triceps and chest.

To perform bodyweight triceps dips:

1. Place your hands shoulder-width apart on the chair you’re propping yourself upon.
2. Shift your pelvis and bottom forward so there’s a gap of 3–6 inches (8–15 cm) between your back and the chair, giving you clearance as you dip down.
3. Bend your legs to a 90–degree angle with your feet planted firmly on the ground, or extend them out in front of you (but don’t lock your knees).
4. Slowly lower your body straight down and then push back up, focusing on engaging your triceps.
5. Complete 3 sets of 10–12 reps.

The goal of many people who work out is to build bigger arm muscles, as well as to make them stronger. While being strong and having a lot of muscle mass are related, they are not the same thing.

The exercises in this article can help you strengthen your arms, but they won't lead to much muscle growth.

If you want to build some arm muscles, you can do these exercises. You can make them more challenging by doing more repetitions per set, up to 20.

As you get stronger, the exercises you're doing will become too easy and you'll need to use weights or some other type of resistance to keep challenging your muscles so they continue to grow.

As mentioned before, it's hard to work out your back and biceps without extra equipment.

This is because the muscles mainly do pulling movements, and there are no real practical ways to use your body weight to load these movements without a suspension method like a pullup bar or TRX system.

If you want to have muscular arms, you will have to do exercises that use more than just your body weight. Even though these exercises alone won't give you big arms, they will help you stay in shape and keep your arms functional when you can't go to the gym.

SUMMARY

Bodyweight arm exercises are only good for beginners and those who can't access equipment. You won't be able to gain large amounts of muscle on your arms with bodyweight exercises alone.

To include the exercises above in an arm strengthening program, consider the following guidelines:

• Perform the workout 2 times per week on nonconsecutive days.
• Start with 3 sets of 10 reps of the easiest exercise, such as arm circles.
• Perform 3 sets of 1 or 2 exercises that are intermediately difficult, performing the exercises either to failure each set or stopping at 20 repetitions.
• Perform 3 sets of the hardest exercise in the list that you can still perform for at least 5 repetitions. Perform these sets to failure. If you can perform more than 20 repetitions, the exercise is not sufficiently challenging.

The bottom line

Adding arm exercises to your fitness routine is important. Although there are a lot of exercises that work the arms, it can be difficult to find ones that don't require any equipment.

This article provides excellent exercises to help you get started with your arm workout program without the need for equipment.

You will need to do equipment-based exercises to continue growing your muscles in the long run.

Even though you may not have access to equipment, there are still some great exercises you can do to help strengthen your arms.