arms – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Straight Arm or Elbow Plank

Snap a picture doing your favorite version of plank and send it our way!

As humans we ponder many great philosophical questions of life such as what is the meaning of life? Or can we trust our own memories? What is time? What is reality? And now we can add should I be doing a straight arm or elbow plank (aka forearm plank)? People always want to know which is harder.

The Answer

Apparently, the answer to this seemingly simple question is as mind boggling as all the rest. Making the answer: BOTH. Alternating between both is important because the body requires, likes, and benefits from variety.

Read a book or look online and most places will tell you a straight arm plank is harder, but not all agree. Clearly, this is a mystery. In my body, there is no doubt in my mind that an elbow plank is considerably more challenging. Everybody is different. But here are the facts we have.

Facts

An elbow plank works your abdominal muscles more. Everyone agrees on that and you can probably feel it for yourself if you compare planks.

Elbow plank is easier on the wrists. So if your […]

Straight Arm or Elbow PlankMaggie Downie2018-03-21T15:42:15-04:00

Arm Strength

Planking on a mountaintop in New Hampshire

Arms tend to be a weak point for many ladies. But there are so many fun moves we can do if our arms, wrists, and shoulders are strong and stable enough. You can do handstands, cartwheels, monkey bars, kick boxing classes, and push-ups. Am I selling you on arm strengthening exercises yet? Okay, you can pick up your grand kids, nieces or nephews. You can lug your own bag through the airport and get it up in the overhead bin without assistance. Even little things like brushing our hair comes from our arm strength.

To build up to all the exercises you dream of doing, start with the basics. Check out the videos below for some very basic arm strengthening exercises. Never do anything that hurts. It’s never worth it. Take your time building up.

For the Shoulders:

Basic Tricep & Bicep Exercises:

Overhead Press for Shoulders:

Plank to Down Dog (Great for strength and shoulder flexibility combined)

Want to Learn More:

Read Tips for a doing a handstand. Click here.

Having Goals and Trying a Jacob’s Ladder. Click here.

What is your purpose? Click here.

Ways to Keep in Touch:

Arm StrengthMaggie Downie2018-04-24T16:01:05-04:00

Arm Workouts

Clearly, I need to do more arm workouts. My friend’s eight-year-old daughter asked me how old I was. I made the mistake of saying, “How old do you think I am?” She walked over to me and instructed me to lift my arm up and out to the side with a bent elbow. Then she patted my tricep flab to test its giggle-bility and pronounced me “forty!” I’m thirty-six. Apparently, my triceps age me.

Everyone laughed and my father-in-love (what we endearingly call my boyfriend’s dad) asked the eight-year-old how old she thought he was. “Fifty,” she guessed. In her mind I was ten years younger than a 78-year-old man.

This is my great-grandma.

As a little girl, I was fascinated by my great-grandma’s tricep flab, and she amazingly let me play with it. She was reasonably toned, but I could still whack her sagging arm back and forth. Born in 1899, she’d spent her early years washing her clothes by hand and cooking everything by hand, using a whisk instead of electric beaters. She was strong. Some tricep flab is going to happen to the best of us.

April Arm Month

In honor of […]

Arm WorkoutsMaggie Downie2018-04-02T10:22:11-04:00