Re: Ok Laurel, guru of the weights...
07/28/05 11:41 AM
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Hehe, I kind of like that  lol
Yeah this can be a difficult area for women. Interestingly, it's mostly hormonal - the more estrogen a person has the more likely that fat will be stored there (which is why you don't really see it on men too much).
Basically our bodies are pre-programmed from birth with hormones and genes as to where our fat will be stored. You can't really target fat loss (what they call 'spot reduction') - that code tells your body where it will put on fat first when it starts storing fat, and consequently where the last place it will lose that fat. (For most women, those stubborn places are the abs, the butt/thighs/hips and the triceps.)
But it's only through bringing your body fat levels down *in general* that that stubborn fat will finally go away. Basically, that just means watching your diet, and doing some cardio (which I know you do lots of already  ). Obviously weight training plays a big role in this too because more muscle = faster metabolism = faster fat loss.
So, it's kind of a two-sided coin: because of hormones/genes and fat loss, working your triceps won't necessarily cause you to lose the fat there. Rather, any kind of weight training will help to speed up your metabolism and, combined with diet and cardio, help you lose fat all over. However, working your triceps muscles WILL make your triceps bigger, which means you have to lose less fat to make them show up. So definitely keep working your triceps - the best exercises for this are dips (where you kind of stretch yourself across 2 benches with your feet on one and your arms on the other and your butt hanging mid-air, and then you dip yourself down using your arms and then lift yourself back up - if this is too easy you can put a plate on your lap, or if it's too hard most gyms have assisted dip machines too), and dumbbell or barbell tricep extensions (linked above).
The 'spot reduction myth' is the reason that people can do 100 crunches everyday but do no other exercise and not eat well and never, ever see those abs. They might have a very nicely defined midsection, it's just covered by a layer of fat. Or, you probably have really nice triceps at this point, it's just that stubborn last bit of fat to lose that's covering them up.
Unfortunately, the other factor in this part of the body is SKIN, right? The skin gets really stretched out and even after you lose some fat it takes it a while to shrink down. But it will shrink down to fit the muscle/fat that's left. It will just take some time. You can buy some creams and such that purport to help speed up the process but I'm not sure how effective those are.
Shell had/has this same problem and I think there's a thread either on this or the living room board that goes into it (basically she was trying to avoid surgery because hers were so bad).
Whew! I didn't expect that reply to be so long...! lol HTH!
Edit: here's a pic of the bench dip exercise I was trying to explain (not very well!): web page
Edited by retrograde (07/28/05 11:42 AM)
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