When it comes to stubborn fat deposits, a common problem area for many people is the arms. While this is more typical in females, some males have the same problem. Fat distribution varies between different individuals and sometimes that last, stubborn, bit of flab is around the upper arm. If you’re like many people, you’ve probably thought to yourself, “wouldn’t it be great if you could spot-train the arms directly and just work your arm muscles regularly to lose that flab?” So, does this actually work? Do bicep curls burn arm fat?
Unfortunately, you cannot just do a bunch of biceps curls and expect to get lean arms from this alone. Fat cannot be spot-trained off. The common analogy is that losing fat is like removing a cup of water from a bucket or a pond – the water doesn’t come from one side or another, it just comes off from all over, evenly. If you need (or want) to lose fat from a certain area, you need to strategize in that way that makes overall fat loss the goal. As you lose fat from all over your body, it will eventually come off your arms too. You cannot control the way your body distributes fat deposits. While biceps curls do burn calories, there are far more efficient calorie-burning exercise choices available that will help you lose this stubborn fat faster. The biceps are a tiny muscle compared to many of your body’s muscles, like those on the legs and torso. So, instead, you should focus on eating a healthy diet at a caloric deficit (consume less than you burn), and doing types of exercise that will burn far more calories than biceps curls will. Better calorie-burning exercise could include either aerobic (cardio) exercise like running, swimming, or cycling, or anaerobic exercises like squats, burpees, or sprints. Move more, eat less, and keep with it and you can get lean, defined arms without doing endless curls.
Is that really all there is to it? Is there no way to do enough curls to get ripped and lose the arm flab? Surely if you do enough of them…. Let’s look a little deeper.
Do bicep curls burn fat?
Technically yes, biceps curls can burn arm fat. But they don’t only burn arm fat, or even only fat. In fact, the biceps will burn only a few calories per set of curls, maybe as little as 5-10 calories per set. Seeing as there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, you see how futile this approach would be. If you were to do enough curls to burn a significant amount of calories, say 500, your arms would be so sore that you would need a week of rest before you could do it again!
Of course, if you are a bigger person, or are very strong and are using a lot of weight, this number will be a little higher, but it’s not going to be a whole lot more.
If you really want to be sure that you are actually progressing, then you need to be monitoring your body fat. just because you’re losing pounds doesn’t mean you’re getting less fat, you could be losing lean mass. Conversely, if you’re trying to ‘bulk up’ you may think that you’re gaining muscle, but you could actually be gaining more fat than you realize. To be sure, check out this Omron handheld body fat reader available on Amazon. This is the one I have at home and I use it regularly to give me a clear and accurate reading of my body composition.
How many calories do curls burn?
It will take at least 5-6 slow and controlled repetitions to burn even a single calorie, maybe more. Even if your perceived effort is very high and you’re using a lot of weight, curls just aren’t that demanding compared to many other forms of exercise. 5 mins of continuous curls and you may use 40-50 calories at the most. It’s just not that type of exercise.
If you want to really burn a ton of calories, you should perform exercises that use larger muscle groups, preferably a few of them. More muscles involved means more total effort and more calories burned. Moreover, if calorie-burning is your number one concern, resistance training should be secondary to your cardio, or aerobic, workouts. Low intensity methods of cardio could include walking, golf, or leisurely swimming. Maybe play a few friendly sets of tennis. If you want a more intense workout, try hitting the heavy bag, running, or competitive pick-up games of your sport of choice. If you can’t think of anything you’d like to do, just go to the gym and hit the elliptical machine.
There are countless activities that you can do, that you probably already do, that burn calories. You just have to figure out what (moderately strenuous) physical activities you like doing and start doing more of them. I’m not saying don’t do curls – it never hurts to develop your biceps – but this will not be the fastest way forward.
Resistance training will help you burn a ton of calories too. With the ‘afterburn’ effect coming from Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), you will continue to burn calories for an elevated rate for many hours after you leave the gym. Additionally, as you build muscle, your body will require more calories to maintain it, so you’ll burn more of them up as your lean mass increases.
Can you ever lose upper arm fat?
We all have our individual areas where stubborn fat deposits seem to stick around forever. If your problem area is the upper arm, you can lose that fat. You need to be disciplined in your diet, and will need to exercise frequently, but eventually you will get lean enough to where the very last nonessential fat deposits will finally be used up. If you were once very obese, it is possible that you may have saggy skin and will need to discuss your options with your doctor. But getting as lean as possible will certainly minimize the appearance of arm flaps.
How can I tighten my arm fat?
While working on the fat loss to shrink your arm fat, you should also perform regular resistance training for your arms. Of course, use resistance training to work and strengthen your whole body, but definitely be sure to get some arm work in.
If you can tone and enlarge the muscles of the arm, it will have a firming effect on the arms. While the muscle will not selectively burn the fat immediately next to it for fuel, it will fill out the arm underneath the fat, and, sort of, stretch it out over a larger frame.
Remember, ⅔ of the muscle on the upper arm belongs to the triceps, so be sure to do some exercises that target this powerful muscle group on the back of the arm. Pushing or pressing exercises are compound movements that will work the triceps along with the chest and/or shoulders. These are great, as well as isolation triceps exercises like cable pushdowns, or dumbbell kickbacks.
How do you lose arm fat fast?
Working out will definitely help, but the main determining factor for this process is your diet. If you eat below your daily maintenance level by 500 calories a day, you should lose 1lb of fat per week. If you eat 500 calories below your maintenance level every day, and burn an extra 500 calories through exercise daily, you can lose 2 lbs per week. This may sound slow, but is actually quite a rapid rate of weight loss.
Watch your diet closely and, depending on how much you need to lose, this will dictate how long it will take.
It is difficult to say how lean you will need to be to eliminate arm fat, as different people carry fat on their body differently. However, if you are a male it is safe to say that at 10% bodyfat you will probably no longer have visible fat on your arms. For women this percentage will be higher, probably 20%. Women carry more fat naturally and may have more difficulty with this particular trouble area. But with a healthy diet that keeps to a strict caloric deficit, determination and some exercise – cardio and resistance – almost anyone can get rid of those stubborn arm flaps.
Can you tone flabby arms?
Is there anything you can do to reduce the fat on your arms? How do you fix saggy arms? There is no quick fix, besides cosmetic surgery, and this can be pricey, inconvenient, and comes with the inherent potential risks of surgery. You just need to continue to work on overall fat loss, and building lean mass. If you can grow the muscle underneath the fat, it will fill-out your arm better and increase its firmness. It will also help you burn more calories down the road.
The good news: what to do.
The good news is, you can – and should – continue to do biceps curls. However, be sure to work your entire body and stimulate the larger muscles to really get your metabolism going and change your body composition. For resistance training, you should focus on compound exercises, especially geared toward the lower body. Movements like squats, leg presses, lunges, deadlifts, as well as rows and presses, will get the far larger muscles of the legs, back, chest and shoulders involved and will do a lot more to help you get lean.
Cardio. Be sure to get at least 30 mins of cardio done, 5 days per week. Running, walking, soccer, speed bag, whatever you are into. Just be as active as possible and you will burn far more calories – and therefore fat – than if you were moving less.
Diet. This is by far the most important single factor involved in fat loss. If you run for 2 hrs each day and follow it with a double cheeseburger and a half-dozen donuts, you will not lose fat. You need to combine the powerful tool of exercise with a disciplined diet that consists of your base caloric intake, or less. Eat less, move more, is the simple axiom for fat loss. Over time, as you continue to keep your caloric intake low, and your exercise output high, your fat will start to disappear. Eventually, it will have no choice but to start shrinking from your stubborn flabby arms too, just hang in there and stick with it. You have to look at the big picture and cannot just train your arms. But, by all means, do some curls.
Related Posts:
Are resistance bands good for biceps curls?
No surprise here, resistance bands are excellent for training biceps (as they are for most muscles) because of the resistance curve! That is, the exercise is easiest at the bottom of the movement, where the biceps are weakest, and the band is the least stretched. Of course, at the top of the movement where the biceps are far stronger, the exercise is hardest because the band has been stretched much further, creating far more resistance.
Does The Speed Bag Tone Your Arms?
The speed bag can be used to perform cardio and build muscle. But can it help tone and strengthen your arms? Yes it will definitely help you tone up, and put a little muscle on your triceps, biceps, and even forearms. Other muscles are involved, like the shoulders, but the arms do most of the work. So if you want to get sculpted looking arms, speed bag training is a great choice!
