To your left is a picture of my best-girl and best workout partner at my wedding a few weeks back.
She and I have been training together for more than two years and it was our love of weight-lifting that brought us together. We were always the only women in the weight room, navigating around grunting men who thought they were the kings of the room. But... as you can see by this picture, they had to give respect for the weight-lifting queens since were definitely NOT lifting anything pink or less than 5lbs.
My girl and I challenge each other every day we train. We love to see how much weight we can lift and always work the hardest we can work. The only day we play around is on "Social Saturday Mornings" when we get in some good laughs while talking with our fellow gym -lovers, male and female alike.
One of our favorite movements, and one of the reasons we have great arm development is due to an exercise called Renegade Rows: in this move you set your body into an elevated plank/pushup position holding two dumbells in your hands on the floor. One rep is counted when you complete one pushup and then one row of each arm while maintaining a rigid body in a plank/pushup position. To see an example of this, check out this great youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyHls4EKqxU (this gal has great arms too! we just add the pushup movement into this exercise which she doesn't demonstrate) As the exercise model points out in the video, this movement is also great for abdominal stability and strength; no crunches required!
Ladies, you won't get big or bulkly doing a movement like this (do we look big or bulky?). You also won't be able to get arms like we have by doing simple (and ineffective) bicep curl exercises with small pink dumbbells. Lift hard and lift heavy to really shape and define your body - muscles are sexy and will keep you healthy and fit for the rest of your life.
For more ideas of how to lift hard and heavy, check out either The New Rules of Lifting for Women, or the Women's Health Perfect Body Diet! Both include great exercise routines and very detailed pictures so that you will perform the movements correctly.
Enjoy!
