anyone have any good excercises to help strengthen the arms? also any that will help strengthen the shoulder/back muscles? i have a tendency to roll my shoulders forward and drop the back arm down when skating.

thanks very much!

weight training is good for both.

Pilates is good for core muscles

Pushups work best, not those girly ones either.

Yeah, weight training is good. Any well-rounded workout for your shoulders, upper back, chest, and abs is a good start. But if you don't have access to a gym, you can do exercises using body-weight...you know, the old-fashioned way...pushups, pullups, chair dips, and the like. A book on calesthenics and pilates can help (maybe you can find them at the library).

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Arms:
-----
tricep extension
tricep pressdown
bicep curl
reverse bicept curl (for the forarm)

Shoulder
--------
Dumbell press
Dumbell lateral raise
Bent over dumbell row (for the back shoulder)

Back
-----
One-arm dumbell row
Lat pull-down
Chin-up

If you're working out at home and don't have dumbell then just use something like a can of coffee, etc. Something that will give you some resistance.

The November 2006 edition of Women's Health magazine has an article, "The Best Exercise for Every Body Part" and it's fairly complete but simple-bodyweight, dumbbells, chinup bar...you might want to check it out!

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

I use a "Total Gym" . To strengthen the muscles that hold my shoulders back I sit facing up the incline and pull back on the cables. I visualize that Im trying to touch my elbows in back of me.

There are other ways of doing this.