The ‘Body Coach’ aka Joe Wicks, offers online nutrition and fitness coaching and has inspired many a Grazia girl to cook with his #Leanin15 video meals on Instagram. His expert advice and cheeky-chap attitude makes for an inspiring voice in the health world so, with spring well and truly here, who better to coach us on banishing our soon-to-be-revealed bingo wings.
1. What is it about our upper arms that make them so susceptible to bingo wings?
There is no real explanation for bingo wings. If someone is eating above their energy demands they’ll start to store excess fat. We can't decide where the body stores this fat: some women gain body fat around their hips and waist and yet have slim arms and legs. Just like some people get lucky and win at erm, bingo, others get unlucky!
2. How do you know if you have excess fat in this area?
Unfortunately the more your upper arms ‘flap’, the more body fat you have!
3. Is there a way to target this upper arm fat?
You cannot target fat loss to one area as the body metabolises stored fat from different zones at different rates.
4. Is it all about toning the area?
Muscle tone requires having leaner muscle fibres. To build lean muscle you need to make your muscles work by carrying out resistance training. Women actually lack the testosterone to get bulky, so they shouldn’t be frightened of building too much muscle and heavier weights will actually help to build a strong and lean body as well as burn more fat. You’ll also need fuel in order to repair and grow muscle so be sure to consume protein and carbohydrates post workout.
5. Will hand grips or wrist weights help tone upper arms at all?
If you consider that women carry handbags that weigh around 2-3kg and lift these throughout the day with little impact on the size of their muscles, small hand-grips or wrist weights will do very little!
6. Aside from free weights are there any gym machines that we should make a bee line for?
Make friends with the close grip bench press and the tricep cable machine and ask for a demonstration on exactly how to use them from a trainer.
7. Are there any gym classes that will give our upper arms a work out too?
TRX classes or body pump are great workouts for an all over fat burning and muscle building workout.
8. What exercises should become your new BFFs?
The king and queen of upper body exercises are pull ups and push ups. If you can master these two moves you will literally work every muscle in your upper body. Of course both are a challenge that you’ll need to work up to, but life is about goals and if you can bang out 10 full press ups and 5 full pulls ups it’s bye-bye bingo wings for sure!
9. And if we can’t get to the gym?
Skipping and boxing are awesome for fat burning and working the muscles. However, if you’re boxing don’t punch the air, invest in a punch bag and kick some ass. You need the impact resistance to really shock the muscles into becoming stronger.
10. If the skin on our arms looks little dimply what can we do about it?
All of the above will help for sure. (And Grazia beauty team swear by the truly genius Ameliorate Skin Smoothing Body Lotion, £17.50 too!).
Visit thebodycoach.co.uk to get a tailored online fat loss plan.
Follow Joe at @thebodycoach