Confessions of a Fitness Instructor

I received an e-mail yesterday from a reader who wanted to ask me a question, since I’m sure she isn’t the only one wondering this, I decided to post the question and my answer for all to read.  Enjoy!

Question:

What exercise can I do to get rid of the bat wings? You know that stupid, very ugly fat that’s on the back of my arms near my pits. I’m lifting weights, 3 lbs, working out with Jillian on her 30 day shred and I have lost 2 inches in my biceps but the bat wings aren’t seeming to shrink much.

Answer:

The technical part (anatomical mumbo-jumbo)

First of all, I want to say that it’s really awesome that you’re working out and have lost 2 inches from your biceps!  Keep up the good work!  The part of the body you are referring to as the “bat wings” are the lats (or lattissimus dorsi).  The lats are the muscle with the largest surface area on the body, and cover a large portion of the back.  The muscle group originates on the spine from vertrabrae T6 to S5 (lower back), and inserts on the upper humerous (upper arm).  Visually, it looks like a big “V” or a kite shaped muscle.  The lats are responsible for shoulder adduction and extension (say what?).  That means they are the muscle group that extends, rotates and lowers the arm and also pulls the shoulder back.

So what do I do about the flab?

I’m going to start off by saying that in order to reduce fat in this or any area, you need to eat healthfully and get (or continue) moving to lose body fat all over.  Unless you’re getting liposuction, spot reducing is impossible so even though that’s the area you’d like the fat to come from, chances are your body isn’t going to adhere to your wishes (darn body!).  If you are already at a healthy weight and still feel like that part of your body is “flabby”, then some extra muscle training for that area is probably what you need.

Now in preparing for this I actually took my shirt off (scandalous!) to check out my “back flab”.  I’ve got pretty solid arms, shoulders and back, but when I poked and prodded around in that “wing” area, I can certainly see that it’s much less toned than the rest of my back.  I’m just throwing that out there so that the average person doesn’t think that it’s abnormal or whatever for that area to be a bit less toned.

The exercises

I know from the question that you’re working out at home using dumbbells, so I’m going to give you a few exercises that can be done at home without the use of fancy equipment or a gym membership.

Since some other sites have already gone to the trouble of making lovely videos and posting pictures and descriptions of these exercises, I’m going to link to them for the description of the exercises (yes, I’m just being lazy.  Sue me, lol.).

As with any body part, you don’t want to over work it, so I’m limiting this to three exercises that you can do up to 3 times/week in addition to your regular workouts.  Work up to 2 sets of 10-12 reps for each exercise.  Here you go:

• Bent-Over Row
• Pullover
• Push-ups –to make the push-up focus more on the lats move your hands so they are wider than your shoulders.  When doing push-ups from your knee make sure you use the knees as a pivot point and when you lower your torso take your butt with you!

You may find that the muscles in your back aren’t fatigued at the end of the 2 sets.  If that is the case, it’s time to increase your weight for those particular exercises.  It’s perfectly normal for people to use a few different dumbbell weights throughout their workout for different body parts.

I’ll close with a bit of good news…since we tend to carry less weight on our arms and upper back, most people find these areas start to tone up more quickly than some other areas (abs, hips, thighs, etc.), so hopefully after a few weeks you’ll start to notice a difference.

Thanks so much for your question, and I hope I answered it to your satisfaction.

If anyone else has a question for me please send an e-mail to suzi@confessionsofafitnessinstructor.com, I love hearing from you!