How Michelle Obama keeps her arms buff, toned, and incredibly ready to bare

January 15, 10:30 AMNew England Fitness ExaminerJo Levy

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 Michelle Obama showing off her toned arms (and the rest of her looks toned as well)! wikipedia

Once upon a time I got to the gym at 5:15a.m. and got to work at 8:00a.m. Three times a week I went back to the gym to work. I had two children but my husband wasn't a Senator or President of the United States.

Michelle Obama got some flack when she wore sleeveless dresses. Some prudish people said it wasn't appropriate for her to bare her arms. As far as I'm concerned at the age of 44 Ms. Obama is a role model in every way. She's inspirational for those of us who say we don't have time!

It seems she goes to the gym three times a week - at least as often as she can. She is one of the lucky ones though who has her own trainer. She also likes interval training and bike riding.

For those of you who don't have personal trainers this is the workout Michelle Obama may be using. Since she is working out three times a week she can superset body parts. She may also be doing a circuit training routine about which I wrote.

I will have Ms. Obama warm up on a cardio machine with handles especially if she is doing an upperbody routine which I am giving her today for her arms. She will superset her biceps and triceps. What this means is that she will do 12 repetitions of a biceps exercise and then go right into 12 repetitions of a triceps exercise. She'll do this three times for four sets of exercises. This should take about 20 minutes if she is working with a trainer who will move her along and get her the equipment she needs.

After her weight training she will do 30 minutes of interval training on cardio machines. Interval training can mean a number of types of workouts. She might ride the bike for 10 minutes, do the stepper for 10 and the treadmill for 10 finishing with the rowing machine.

She may opt to work on one machine on day and another another day or she may choose to interval train on one machine which is very effective. She would walk on a treadmill at a slow pace (This is one example of many.) for 3 minutes and then still at that speed raise the level so she's walking up a hill for 5 minutes. She will then lower the treadmill and increase her walking so she is power walking for 5 minutes and then slowing down for 5. The goal is to raise her heart rate and then lower it and then raise it again. Her heart has to work harder if she interval trains.

 Her routine (feel free to use it) is:

1. Biceps curl machine followed by the triceps machine
2. Preacher curl using a preacher curl pad and a dumbbell curls followed by skull crushers with her trainer spotting her.
3. Concentration curls using dumbbells followed by two handed over head triceps extensions
4. She'll then go over to the cable machine to do arm curls - one at a time with a handle on the clip followed by triceps pressdowns either with a rope of small straight bar

 After her workout she will do ten minutes of abdominal work and stretching. She will do machines one day; floor work the other; and some core/Pilates work on the third day.