You should be able to get nice arms. It all plays down to what exercises you are doing and how often you do em.

Hopefully Kona will chime in here, as she is in awesome shop and prolly more qualified than me to dish out toning advice to women.

Tricep kick backs and over head extensions seem to give me the most definition out of any weight workouts. Throw in some curls and straight arm deltoid lifts and you're on your way. Lighter weight, higher rep is definately key, but you dont want it to be TOO light. It should still take a bit of effort. Maybe 4 sets of 12?

also nutrition

I would say three to four times a week. That's how many times that I work out.

Thanks all for all the help and suggestions.

:0)

trihardgal

I agree with a few of the posters about pushups.
I am by no means huge but I do pushups in the morning and at night about 1/2 hour before bed usually about 50 each time.
It will also help with your swim endurance.
Swimming overall will give you a lean toned look too,

And you will feel Damn Sexy!! :D

Triguy, thanks for the shout out!

Toning...now there's a blast from the past! There is no such thing. We all have muscle and fat. The less fat we have, the more muscle we can "see."

A muscle that isn't being worked will have more of a flabby appearance than one that is being worked regularly. The ability to SEE that muscle depends upon how much fat is on top of it.

There is no difference between exercises to build/maintain muscle vs. so-called "toning." One and the same. Resistance exercise. If you and I do the exact same resistance training routines, we will still not look exacty the same. Why? Because we are born with muscles that tend towards a particular shape. Look at pics of bodybuilders--they all have different areas that "pop."

It's a myth that women need to worry about getting bulky. Why? We don't have the testosterone levels of men (we do have some, though).

So you want to look cut up?

1. Get your bodyfat measured. Women won't begin to look "cut" unless their bodyfat is around 20% or less (20% is perfectly healthy, though). If you are >20%, consider cleaning up your diet to drop some fat, which is a good idea anyway, since fat doesn't add anything to your triathlon performance.

2. Work with a personal trainer who knows about the demands of triathlon to develop a strength routine that will not only work on those muscles that don't get used so much (like biceps--hey, we don't much need them as triathletes, but it sure looks nice to have them, eh?), but will strengthen those that are vulnerable to overuse injury (rotator cuff muscles, hip rotators) and improve your overall muscular health (core). I have posted my own abs/core routine on trifuel--search and you will find it.

I average about 1.5 hours per week of strength training (which includes my core work), which is really not a lot, considering that before I began running and tris, I would put in about 4 hours per week of strength! But you can see a lot of my muscle because my bodyfat is very low (about 10% now). But remember, for a woman, 20% or less is good.

In terms of how to structure a strength program, I could go on and on, but again, work with a personal trainer who knows triathlon. I believe there's a good program on trinewbies.com. A strength program needs to be periodized to match your training and racing schedule. When you taper for a tri, you also taper your strength accordingly. You want to build up your strength in the off season, as heavy lifting will slow you down in the pool and on the run (not so much on the bike). As you move towards racing season, you want to go into more of a maintenance mode.

There are those who advocate NO strength training for triathletes. My opinion is that everyone can benefit from strong core muscles. Beyond that, I think that as you age (particularly once you hit the big 4-0, and I'm going on 5-0 in a few months!), it helps to do regular strength work to maintain your muscle mass, which will give your metabolism a boost and stave off the accumulation of additional fat stores. Women especially tend to lose basic strength faster than men as they age.

Good luck!

"Toning" in the context that most people use it sort of a myth, however, i suggest doing heavy weights (10-15 reps to failure) as well as a good high protein low fat diet

Hey, Scott, thanks for the compliment.

Yep, I'm going to Disney again, and hope to improve my times a little bit.

Um...this time the costume will be in the 1/2 mary, not the full. I am hoping we have warmer weather this time!

As far as what the costume might be.....I haven't thought about it yet. I have retired the pink tutu, though.