A 12-Minute Kettlebell Arms Workout to Fire Up Your Biceps and Triceps

Sometimes, it’s nice to take your time within the gym. Other times you don’t have an additional minute to spare—and that’s where this quickie kettlebell arms workout is available in.

Amanda Ting, DPT, CSCSa private trainer at Mark Fisher Fitness in NYC, created the routine below for busy folks who need to hit their biceps and triceps (together with chest and shoulders too)—and be out and in in lower than quarter-hour. With this workout, you’ll strengthen your arms of course, but because of its circuit-style programming (where you progress from exercise to exercise with minimal rest), your heart rate will stay elevated throughout. That brings us to a different time-saving profit: You’ll work on strength cardio without delay.

This kettlebell arms workout has more to supply, though, than simply convenience, an upper-body burn, and a cardio bonus: It’s pretty rattling functional. That means it strengthens your body in ways in which translate on to real-life movements (think pushing open a heavy door or lifting something overhead onto a shelf).

In two of the exercises—the ground press and overhead press—you’ll deal with one side at a time, which helps you ID and work on strength differences between them, says Ting. Plus, when just one side is working, this “forces your core to work slightly harder to stabilize the remaining of your body,” Ting explains. Another surprising good thing about doing these moves one after one other is that it trains your ability to efficiently rise up from the ground, she adds. “That’s crucial to longevity and mobility in on a regular basis life.”

Ting programmed this arms workout with kettlebells, which also helps make it easy to suit into your schedule. “They’re versatile and fairly portable; you’ll be able to complete this workout with just one to 2 kettlebells, making it excellent for many environments where access to fitness equipment is restricted,” she says. You can truly do that workout anywhere, like on the gym, at home, at your desk, and even outside, she adds—and still have enough time to make dinner and sneak in an episode or two of your latest Netflix binge.

Ready for a kettlebell arms workout that targets your triceps, biceps, and shoulders? Right this fashion.

The Workout

What you would like: One medium-weight kettlebell for the chest press and biceps curl, and one barely lighter one for the overhead press and triceps extension.

The right weight will vary depending in your current fitness level and arm strength, but five to 10 kilos is a superb place to begin for beginner lifters. “The weight should feel difficult by the top of the interval, but not inconceivable,” Ting says. If you are feeling like you possibly can keep going long after your work period is over, your weight is simply too light; for those who can’t even get through 15 seconds of the movement or you are feeling your form beginning to break before the 30 seconds are over, your weight is simply too heavy.

Exercises

• Single-Arm Chest Press
• Single-Arm Overhead Press
• Biceps Curl
• Overhead Triceps Extension

Directions

• Do the next moves within the order listed below. Perform each movement for 30 seconds, resting 10 seconds before starting the following exercise.
• Once you’ve done one set of each exercise, rest for 15 seconds before starting one other round.
• Do 3 rounds for a 12-minute workout. You may also do 1–2 rounds as a finisher at the top of your predominant upper-body workout.