The 13 Best Arms Exercises for Beginners

To get sleeve-splitting arms like Vin Diesel or Mark Wahlberg, you’re gonna have to trash your triceps, blast your biceps, and make your forearms pop. In short, you need to work your arms to exhaustion.

But as a beginner working with next to no muscle and little strength, you’re gonna need to start with the basics.

Here, we’ve outlined 13 basic, tried-and-true arms workouts to help you safely and effectively pack on muscle, courtesy of Ngo Okafor, P.T., creator of FitMatch.

Want to look better in your T-shirt? Or shirtless? Work through these moves—and put these moves to work by trying Okafor’s ultimate arms workouts for beginners.

Directions

If you’re adding these to your own arms workout, complete 4 sets of 15-20 reps of each of these moves except the forearms finishers (palms-up wrist curl over a bench and palms-down wrist curl over a bench); they’ll get 3 sets of 20 reps.

Want more options when you grow stronger? Try our ultimate 10-minute arms workout or these six unconventional arms exercises to crush strength plateaus and develop new muscle. Or if you prefer kettlebells and are short for time, check out the best 15-minute kettlebell workouts.

1. Hammer Curl

What it works: biceps

How to do it: Stand tall with a dumbbell in each hand. Let your arms hang so they’re fully extended, elbows tucked in, palms facing your sides. Keeping your upper arms still, curl the dumbbells up at the same time (only your forearms should move). Contract your biceps, pause, then lower and repeat.

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