Excess flab in the upper arm area, also referred to as bingo wings, is not a nice sight and restricts a lot of people on what they can or can't wear, especially come the warmer months when sleeveless tops or t-shirts are worn.
This area is primarily made up of the tricep muscle, running from your elbow, up the back of your arm to the back of the shoulder and the tricep has 3 muscle groups here. To banish those bingo wings you'll want to tone up the muscle here, as well as burning off the excess fat during fitness courses.
Toning up is achieved when you work high repetitions with light weight or resistance, ideally three sets of 12 - 15 repetitions. A good exercise to work the tricep is the close-arm press-up. Standard press-ups also work the tricep, but more the chest. By bringing the hands closer together, under your chest and performing your press-up, you are going to target the triceps more, as well as the centre of your chest. This is a difficult exercise, so I would recommend performing this either on your knees to reduce the resistance, or onto an elevated position such as a window sill, so you can achieve the high repetitions required, as opposed to standard close arm press ups on the floor, where you may struggle to perform more than 5 - 6.
Dips will also target the triceps and these can be done again from an elevated solid ledge, like a large step or sill. Make sure your fingers are facing forward, and don't let your elbows push out to the sides. Reach for the ledge behind you, it should be at about hip height and place your hands firmly on the edge, then walk your feet out a few feet at first and start to lower your body down, until your elbows are about 90 degrees, then push yourself back to your starting position. The further you walk your feet out, the more difficult the fitness courses will become. Keep the repetitions between 12 - 15 and aim for 3 sets. At a BMF outdoor bootcamp we perform dips as a partner exercise, with your partner on their hands and knees they can create a solid base, rest your hands on your partner's shoulder and hip and perform your dips, make sure your partner has their knees directly below their hips and hands directly below their shoulders, this will create a good solid flat platform for you. Make sure your partner is not feeling any discomfort as you exercise during the group fitness classes.
Body bars are a great bit of equipment we use during our outdoor bootcamp and you can perform many exercises to target the upper arm area, such as tricep extensions, shoulder press, lateral raises, and bicep curls to name a few. The shoulder press will primarily work the deltoids (main shoulder muscle) but it will also train the tricep too. The bicep curl works the front of the upper arm, and is the opposing muscle to the tricep. It is important to work the opposing muscle groups equally, so remember, for all the tricep exercises you do, work the biceps as well.
Alternatively, if you wanted a change from weight / resistance fitness courses, a boxing circuit would also be a great way to work the whole upper body, weighted gloves would strengthen the arms and the extremely high repetitions add to the toning up effect, together with the cardio side of the circuit, increasing your fitness levels and burning fat.
Steve