THE arms have taken on a life of their own. They have provoked controversy, envy, a bit of backlash, even bad puns about the right to bare them. But enough debate and deconstruction. Now women are talking about construction.
“I want Michelle Obama arms,” Julie Eich told her trainer on the Upper East Side of Manhattan two weeks ago, uttering a request echoing off many gym mirrors these days.
In recent months, the first lady has bared her toned biceps, triceps and shoulders at the Inaugural Ball, on the covers of Vogue and People, at her husband’s first televised address to Congress and in her official White House photograph. She does not have Madonna’s sinewy muscles popping out of paper-thin skin. Nor, with her solid 5-foot-11 frame, does Mrs. Obama, who is 45, have a typical runway model body. That makes her image even more admirable to many women, and perhaps even attainable.
“It’s great to see a first lady that looks good, wears great clothes and takes care of herself,” said Guthrie Schweitzer, 34, who has two daughters.
While watching the election campaign — most often, from a treadmill — she could not help mentioning Mrs. Obama’s physique to the director of personal training at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, Keith Gittens, who helped her lose 35 pounds.
“I don’t know anyone who sees her and doesn’t think, ‘That’s the type of woman I want to be,’ ” she said.
It is one thing, however, to emulate Michelle Obama by buying from J. Crew or one of the designers she favors. It is another thing to do some biceps curls and achieve instant results.
“You work hard to look like that,” Simone Scott, 47, said, before adding with a sigh: “I had those arms once upon a time. And then, I fell off the wagon.”
So Ms. Scott called her trainer, Brad Schoenfeld, after a 10-year hiatus, which included the birth of her twins, now 4 years old. A visiting nurse in the Bronx, Ms. Scott has returned to twice-weekly sessions with Mr. Schoenfeld in Scarsdale, N.Y. He is the owner of the Personal Training Center for Women and the author of several fitness books, including “Sculpting Her Body Perfect.”
There is no single, easy route to arms like Mrs. Obama’s (dubbed “Thunder” and “Lightning” by David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times). Instead, the trainers recommend an integrated workout that combines weight lifting — working the opposing muscles in the biceps, triceps and shoulders in one session — along with cardio activities, core strength development and, equally important, diet.
“You can have the best muscle definition, but if you have that layer of fat over it, you’ll never see the tone underneath,” Mr. Schoenfeld said.
Mrs. Obama has not revealed details of her workouts, although she has said that she trains in the morning several times a week (before her daughters wake up), lifting weights and doing cardio, and working with a personal trainer who has also guided her husband.
Trainers are careful, though, to warn their clients who choose to emulate a celebrity role model. “You have to have their genetics,” said Mr. Schoenfeld, who added, “That covers about 50 percent, but if you train, everyone has the ability to look terrific within their own genetic framework.”
Putting heredity aside, to build the better arm in the mold of Mrs. Obama, trainers suggest developing one specific shoulder muscle: the medial deltoid.
“The shoulders are important because they create the whole illusion of the upper body and mask flaws below,” Mr. Schoenfeld said. “The side part of the deltoid muscle is what gives you a shapely look.”
Trainers suggest one specific exercise for that: lateral raises. The client, holding dumbbells, raises her arms out to her side, repeating the motion 10 to 12 times, for three sets. For people who want a leaner look, trainers suggest using a lower weight with more repetitions (15 to 20).
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