Trying to ‘Tone’ Your Arms? Why Lifting Heavier Is the Answer

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I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout. Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author. I'm a Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven most of all by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover with as many people as I can. And that's where you come in. That's why I created the well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to powerful aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now@subscribetoj.com to start earning unlocking your healthiest, most energetic self. Want to listen to this show ad free? Head over to subscribetoj.com and start your ad free experience today. Hey JJ, virgin here. Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me. Travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things. And suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of year reset could be a real goal this time. Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use the code virginonarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

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You still using those tiny pink dumbbells? Doing tons of reps? Hoping to tone your arms? Well, here's the truth. If you want strong, defined find arms. You got to go heavier. Hey jj, Virgin here and I have been into arms for years and I get asked all the time, how do you get those arms? Well, I'm going to reveal all in this video. Now, if you're into body composition, metabolism, improving your metabolic health, aging powerfully, be sure to subscribe to this channel because I'm dropping all sorts of intel every week and today I'm going to be diving into arms. Now here's the reality I hear all the time, hey, I want to get arms yours, but I don't want to lift heavy or I don't want to get big. The reality is, if you want strong tone, defined arms, you're going to want to lift some heavy weights. Before we get into that, let's talk first about what muscle tone is, because I think there's a lot of confusion. I hear all the time about long, lean, defined muscles. The length of the muscle can't be changed. You can grow a muscle that's called hypertrophy, but what you're really looking for is that muscle to look lean and defined at rest. And that is something called muscle tone, which is once you've built that muscle, it's partially contracted all the time so it looks like it has more shape to it. And if you then lose the fat right then you'll get that toned, defined muscle that you're thinking about. This concern about getting bulky. The reality is 40 years of working with people, helping them do resistance training, the only time I've seen someone get bulky is when they're not working out, when they're just sitting on the couch and when they're overeating Especially on ultra processed foods. When you are lifting weights, especially as how I'm going to describe it in this video, you're going to create that partial contraction at rest, and you're going to help your body rip off the fat so that you will have that great definition you want. Otherwise, if you're not doing that, if you don't have the muscle tone, that's where your arms start to look soft or flabby. Right? You've heard the bingo wing arms. That's what they're talking about there. So we are going to be looking at how you get sculpted, how you get lean, how you get ripped. And I like to call muscle metabolic Spanx, because muscle holds everything in tighter, has that little partial contraction creating that tone. And it also boosts your resting energy expenditure so that you're using more calories at rest, right? You're just burning more high reps. Little weight isn't the way to create that sculpted look. So what is. Why am I saying to lift heavier weights? I'm going to actually walk you through what I want you to think about when you are building muscle and what you need to do. While I don't want you doing loads of reps, I do want you doing reps, because volume, how much work you do, is one of the ways you trigger hypertrophy. Now, we used to think that there was a very tight repetition range. And when I say repetition, let's say that you're doing push ups. Every time you do a push up, that's one repetition. So let's say you did 10 pushups, that's 10 reps, and you did one set. So that's the vernacular. We used to think that in order for you to build muscle was a very tight little range of 8 to 12 or 15 repetitions. We now know that range is much bigger. It's like six to 30 reps. But it's important to know that you need to do multiple sets. You want to make sure that by the time you get to the last rep or two, you feel like, really, if I do another one, I'm going to lose my form. And I always like to say that form is the ultimate limiter. So how many sets you can or how many repetitions you can do is not based on, can I get that weight back up, it's can I get the weight moving in good form, form is always going to be your limiter. In order to build muscle, you are going to want to get to almost to that point of what we call failure, where if you feel like you do the next one, your form is going to go. And what I found with most people is they cut themselves short when they could have done more. So make sure that you're really pushing to that point where if you feel like you did the next one, your form is going to go. We call that a rep and reserve. Let's say that you've done 10 repetitions and you might be able to eke out one more in good form. That's one rep in reserve. We really want to get to the point where we only have one or two reps in the tank, if that. It might get to the point where you feel like, ugh, I just, I can't do another one. Great. You're going to want to do multiple sets of that, and every time you're doing that, we call that time under tension. And it's the volume of time under tension that helps build muscle. And it's building muscle that helps create that partial contraction that gives you that muscle tone when you are at rest. Now, in order to see that muscle tone, you also have to lose body fat. So we are going to talk about that as well. But first thing is, how do you build that muscle? The rep range is big. It's anywhere from six repetitions to 30 repetitions. And people who are more comfortable with lighter weights, you can do the longer reps, but I'm going to encourage you to start to go heavier and heavier and heavier as you progress and to focus on doing the lower rep range more around like six to eight, because that's going to help you build more strength as well. So I prefer going to the lower rep range first of all. It's more time efficient, too, but also because you're going to build more strength going heavier. Another thing I'm going to want to emphasize is you're going to want to hit each body part at least twice a week with a rest day in between, one to two rest days in between. If you still feel sore or you're sore at a joint site, shouldn't feel sore to joint site and shouldn't be sore to touch. If you are, give yourself a little bit more of a rest. Try something like foam rolling or an Epsom salts bath to help there. But ideally, you're hitting each body part at least twice a week. So two or three times a week. People talk to me and they think, JJ must do a lot with just her arms. But when I think about doing arms, I always move into more compound movements. I like to say that I'm training to get better at life, not training to get better at training. If you want your arms to look great, sure, you could spend your time doing bicep and tricep curls. But the reality is if you're doing things like push ups or pull ups or bent over rows, you're going to be using your bicep muscles every time you're doing a pulling exercise. You're going to be using your tricep muscles every time you're doing a pushing exercise. But you'll also be using other muscles as well. So I prefer to focus on compound movements for the majority of what I'm doing. So here's what that might look like for you. Upper body pushing exercises because we're focusing on arms, of course, in this video, upper body pushing exercises are things like push ups. A push up is also like a chest press, right? You could do a push up or you could do a dumbbell chest press, or you could do a seated chest press. There are incline presses, there's overhead presses, there's dips. And when you're doing chest presses or dips or overhead presses, not only are using your triceps, you're also using the front of your shoulders, you're using your pec muscles, you're using your, your trap muscles, you're pulling in a lot more things. So for upper body pushing, you're going to want to do two to three different exercises two to three times a week. So that could look like a push up and an overhead press, or a push up and overhead press and a dip. You're going to want to be accumulating 20 total sets a week. That's the best for your volume load to build muscle. So what that could look like for you is that you are twice a week doing five sets of pushups, five sets of overhead presses, or three times a week. Maybe you're doing three sets of dips, three sets of overhead presses and four sets of pushups, but getting in 20 sets total a week of your different pushing exercises. For upper body pulling, think of things like a bent over row, an upright row, a pull up, and again, same thing here, 20 sets a week. So you could do two days of say a pull up and a bent over row, or three days a week of three sets of pull ups, four sets of bent over rows, three sets of upright rows. And with upper body pulling, you're using your lats, you're using your rear shoulders, you're using the middle of your shoulders, you're using your biceps. So you're using more than just Your biceps. I have something that I wrote about way back when my first book out was six weeks to sleeveless and sexy. And when I wrote that book, I talked about something called the Vanity Trio. And what I said there is, once you've done the upper body pushing and upper body pulling, you can throw in those vanity exercises. Let's say you've just done all your pushing exercises. If at the end you want to do some triceps extensions, go for it, have fun. It can be a way to really fatigue out those muscles. If you want to do some bicep curls after you've done all your pulling exercises, go for it again, some same thing. It can be a way to really build up and fatigue that muscle. And then I also have some shoulder exercises that I like, some diagonal raises, and that's what I call my vanity trio. So feel free to do that if you want to do that. But if you have short time and you really want to focus, focus on the compound exercises first. That work both your arms and your shoulders and pecs and lats, because then you're going to be able to build actually more bicep and tricep muscles, because you've got to have the foundation of your lats and pecs and shoulders as well. So all of that is super duper important. As we age, we are going to be losing up to 1% of our muscle each year. 2 to 4% of our strength and 6 to 8% of our power. This is why I like to focus on not just resistance training, to stimulate that muscle protein synthesis and stimulate that hypertrophy, but also I like to look at strength, and that's why I like to go heavier and then also moving that exercise through the. The shortening phase, the concentric phase, as fast as possible. So they can also pull in the power. Hypertrophy is the size of the muscle. Strength is how heavy you can do something one time, and power is how fast you can do it. The other cool side effect of doing this is we're doing compound exercises that mimic a lot of the exercises that you go out and do during the day. Like, I think of, we joke about it. My husband and I travel a lot, and as we're pulling this heavy luggage, we call it the CrossFit Olympics with these luggage. But think about the times you have to put something in an overhead bin. You have to lift groceries up or lift suitcases up. This is why we're doing those things, so we can get better at life. The other cool side effect of doing resistance training is that it's also really good for bone mineral density. And when I think of the something like an overhead press specifically, that is putting load all down the spine. Now, something you may not have realized that exercise can be good for, because it's kind of counterintuitive, is that exercise is also great for your skin for actually improving skin elasticity and dermal thickness. And by the way, bonus points if you're taking my chiatine product alongside this. I am a big fan of creatine hcl. I put creatine HCL with magnesium glycinate and taurine as the trifecta product to help you work out harder and recover better. But one of the things that creatine also helps you do is helps with good skin elasticity. So. And resistance training also helps with skin elasticity and dermal thickness. So not only is this going to help counteract the effects of aging in terms of muscle loss, but it also helps with your skin. In fact, we also know resistance training increases your dermal thickness by stimulating fibroblast activity, which helps with collagen production. Creatine does this too, by the way. Helps with collagen production. So think about this in terms of your arms, because you want to have the muscles in there, you don't want to have that flabby skin. So it's helping with the flabby skin and it's helping with the muscle. So it's a one, two punch of super effectiveness. Now, if you're thinking about this and you're going, yeah, but I feel a little bit nervous about lifting heavier. The first thing that I want you to think about as you start doing these exercises is just getting the movement down. You're actually training your nervous system and your muscles on how to communicate together. And you really want to focus on great form. If you can work with a trainer to help teach you how to do these exercises, even better. Worst case, you stand in front of the mirror and you really watch yourself and watch your form with these things, because form is always going to be the limiter. Then you start adding weight. And I always tell people, start slow. You know, go slow and low and really start with the weights you can handle in good form and then just start increasing 5 or 10%. Remember, there's two different ways we can increase the volume. We can either increase the amount of reps or increase the amount of weight. So either way, you can do this or you can always add another set in as well or two if you're intimidated. The other thing you can do is to start first with machines and then move over to the free weights and to the cables. Right. There's a variety of ways you can play around here, but what I want you to really start to think about is your goal is to get to a point where you're working more in the say 6 to 8 to 10 rep range, working heavier, harder to really help to build strength as well. And again, make sure that you're doing this minimally two days a week, three days a week can work too, and you're giving yourself a rest day in between. Now, part of having defined, toned, strong arms, you gotta have the muscle mass there, but you also need to make sure that you are losing the fat as well. Now I'll give you a little secret. If you want to build muscle, it works better if you're in a little bit of a caloric surplus, you're eating a little bit more than what your body needs and that you're getting enough protein because your body needs the protein to build the muscles. That's 100 grams minimally of protein a day. And I want you to actually track it using an app I like Cronometer. I'll put that in the show notes. And I really feel like it's better if you're doing 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight and it actually is going to make it easier for you to start to lose fat after. When I'm focused solely on putting on muscle, I will do a little caloric surplus, doesn't need to be a lot, 100, 200 calories a day and start to work on putting on the muscle first. And then once I'm where I want to be, muscle mass wise as determined by a bioimpedance machine or a DEXA scan, then I will start to work on on losing some body fat. And the way I focus on losing body fat is pushing that protein to at least a gram per pound of target body weight because protein has a higher thermic effect. So it's going to burn more calories in the digestion and assimilation and it's super satiating. So I'll pump up my protein a little bit. I will lower my calorie intake to about 25% less than maintenance and I'll do that for five days on two days off. And I make sure I'm doing the heavy resistance training so that I'm holding onto that muscle as I'm losing body fat. Because ultimately if you want defined arms, you got to have the muscle to create that tone but then you also want to make sure you're losing the body fat so that you can see the muscle. Now here's the good news. When you're doing resistance training, it's going to improve your resting energy expenditure. When you're eating more protein, it's going to take, it's going to create a higher thermic effect of food. So both those things are going to help you in your goal to lose body fat. But this is how to do it a little bit easier is to then pump the protein up a little bit more and do that cycling caloric restriction. Here's the big takeaways with this. Doing loads and loads and loads and loads of wraps. I'm talking like where you do like a minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes of some type of arm exercise is not going to build muscle. That's much more of an endurance type of exercise. In order for you to build muscle, you have to work in a lower rep range and go heavier. Then you also want to make sure that you are giving your muscles the protein that they need in order to build that muscle. Because you need both the exercise stimulus and, and the protein to build muscle. You need to make sure that you're also doing a little caloric restriction so that you can shed the fat so that you have those lean, toned, defined arms. The thing that I've seen with muscle mass is that this is the arms are one of the easier places to start to really see the difference. So you'll probably notice a difference. If you're brand new to resistance training, you'll notice a strength increase in the first four to six weeks before you start to really see that muscle start to go. If you're worried about getting too big, you'll be lucky if you can put on a pound of muscle a month. It is not easy to do. And the good news is if you look and go, well, my arms are getting too muscular. You can just back off a minute and they'll go away. But I will tell you, in 40 years of doing this, that has never happened. I've never seen it. So you'd be the first one ever. And if that does happen, let me know. But again, all you'd need to do is back off. Right? And the other thing I'm going to just share with you is make sure that you're also doing the other things that help you lose body fat, like getting in your steps all throughout the day and adding in some high intensity interval training. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook and my website jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast@subscribetoj.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode. Want to listen to the show ad free? Head over to subscribetoj.com and start your ad free experience today. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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