The best way to improve sagging arms after 70 is to build more arm muscle. With more muscle, the skin can rest against something solid. Fuller, more muscular arms look younger. As you age, preventing muscle loss is incredibly important for both looks and longevity. Every client I’ve worked with after 70 who rebuilt the muscle in their arms drastically improved the visual appearance of the arm skin and tone.
Gym classes can offer an easy path to exercise, but they often use very light weights, which challenge your heart rate more than your muscular system. This problem doubles as you age because most people feel uncomfortable using heavy weights in classes where the pace is so high you feel like any weight more than a few pounds will lead to injury, especially when you’re trying to keep up with the participant next to you.
However, the answer to stronger arms isn’t necessarily heavy dumbbells. Often, your own body is heavy enough to create a real stimulus to increase muscle size and improve tone. The nice thing about using wall exercises is they give you a solid platform to lean against, and you can make them harder or easier depending on how far you stand away from the wall. Do 3 sets of 6-10 reps of each exercise.
Wall Push-Up
The wall push-up trains your shoulders, chest, and triceps at the same time. Step farther away from the wall, and the exercise becomes more challenging. Step closer to the wall, and the exercise becomes easier. Place your hands flat on the wall, shoulder-distance apart, with straight elbows. Brace your core and keep a neutral position forming a straight line from your ankles all the way to your shoulders. Bend your elbows and lower as far as you can, and press straight back to the start.
How to Do It
- Place both hands on the wall at chest height
- Step your feet back and stand tall
- Lower your chest over three seconds
- Press back over two seconds
- Keep the body straight throughout
- Step further back to make it harder.
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Triceps Wall Push-Up
The triceps muscles are the muscles on the back of your arm, which is where the skin starts to sag as you get older. If you can fill that area with muscle, it’ll improve the overall look of your arm. The triceps wall push-up is a similar exercise to the wall push-up, but more challenging. In this move, you bring your hands closer together, where you can focus on the triceps and take the chest out of the equation.
How to Do It
- Place both hands close together on the wall
- Step your feet back into a straight line
- Keep your elbows tucked beside your ribs
- Lower your chest slowly toward your hands
- Press back up without flaring the elbows
- Stop when the elbows drift wide.
Doorway Curl
This exercise looks a bit funny, but is actually extremely effective at building arm muscle. In this exercise, you’re not using the wall itself, but you’re using the doorway next to the wall. You can do this one arm at a time or both arms together. Grab the side of the door frame. Bend your knees, sit back while holding on. Bend your elbow and pull yourself toward the door. Hold the top position and lower with control.
How to Do It
- Stand inside a door frame
- Bend your elbows and grab the frame
- Bend your knees
- Lean back
- Bend your elbows and bring chest towards frame
- Lower back until elbows are straight.
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Wall Angel
No one looks good with hunched forward shoulders. Wall angels work to build the postural muscles that keep your shoulders and arms healthy and young-looking. This exercise is trickier than it looks. You want to make sure to keep as many points of contact with the wall as possible throughout the movement, including your back, your shoulders, your arms, and your head. Use a slow tempo and stop anytime you feel a sticking point and can’t go any further.
How to Do It
- Stand with your back flat against a wall
- Place the backs of your hands on the wall
- Keep your elbows bent at shoulder height
- Slide your arms up while keeping contact
- Stop before anything lifts away
- Lower slowly and repeat.
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One-Arm Wall Push-Up
This final move takes our first exercise and doubles the challenge. When you place your whole body weight on one arm, you drastically increase the amount of resistance compared to using both arms. You also challenge core muscles and your stabilizer muscles as well because all your weight is on one side and the opposite side has to compensate. The other nice thing about single-arm movements, or unilateral movements, is that you can fix any muscle imbalances you might have because you can work both sides equally.
Stand much closer to the wall than you would with two arms. Make sure to keep your hips square instead of letting one side tilt. Lower slowly, press back up. Try stepping back a little bit farther once you can do the movement with perfect form. Also, make sure that you’re still keeping your elbow pointed back (at a 45-degree angle to the torso) rather than letting it move too far to the side. If your elbow starts to flare out too aggressively, you’re at greater risk of shoulder impingement.
How to Do It
- Place one palm flat on the wall at chest height
- Stand closer than you would with two arms
- Rest the other hand on your hip
- Keep your hips square to the wall
- Lower slowly and press back up
- Switch arms and repeat.
The post 5 Wall Exercises That Firm Sagging Arms Faster Than Gym Classes After 70 appeared first on Eat This Not That.
