Asian man in orange at the gym sitting and doing bicep curls while looking down.

Strong arm muscles are good for more than carrying your girlfriend’s end-of-season-sale shopping haul. While a ripped core is something to aspire for, it's only a fraction of total optimum fitness. Here are seven reasons having powerful upper body muscles is essential for a well-rounded workout. Spoiler alert: they prevent injury and help you get daily tasks done easier, improving your quality of life overall.

1. It Improves Cardiovascular Health

Research shows that . The American Heart Association recommends strength exercises like lifting weights to keep your heart healthy. You don’t even have to be a bodybuilder to reap results. A little resistance can go a long way. The best part is you don’t need expensive equipment. Want to protect your ticker? Be a lifter.

2. It Helps Give You a Better Posture

Being stuck in your office chair because of can make your back more hunched than Quasimodo’s. Long hours of being sedentary can lead to posterior imbalances. Kyphosis is a spinal disorder that occurs from an excessive curve on the spine. As your chest muscles tighten, the muscles in your back weaken and push your shoulders to appear rounded. Strong arm and back muscles encourage a more upright posture and improve core strength as your body is forced to stand tall.

3. It May Prevent Injury

Another study shows that resistance training can help or reduce their severity – at least. Your arm, shoulder, chest, and back muscles are your body’s first line of defense against injuries. A weak suit of armor would not be able to protect you from skeletal or ligament injuries that you could have prevented with strong upper body muscles. Save yourself from pain and get some reps in for big gains.

4. It Better Performance

Don’t be surprised if you don’t break a sweat from doing other exercises when you have strong arm muscles. Upper body strength training boosts your workout and helps you achieve peak performance. Doing arm exercises will make excellent ground training for swimmers and help them propel through the water faster. Strong arms will improve athletic performance . But athletes who require upper body strength, like boxers and rock climbers, will especially benefit from having big guns.

5. It Boosts Metabolism

Another terrific side effect of a good arm muscles workout is its ability to boost your metabolism. Combined with a controlled calorie-deficit diet, strength training can help you eliminate excess body fat and make you a leaner, meaner, more muscular machine.

The more muscles you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate. Unlike cardio, strength training can have your body burning calories for up to 72 hours after training. That’s three-days worth of fat burning! Pretty awesome.

6. It Strengthens Your Grip

Strong arm muscles start with a robust grip. As they say, you can only lift as much as you can hold. As your body performs different arm exercises, you’ll get used to various grip positions that align with biceps, triceps, and shoulder movements. But the real reward comes when you start seeing how well you can move weight in your hand, a handy skill in everyday life.

7. It Protects Your Bones

Every year, your bones get weaker. It's not a fun fact, but a crucial one to know. But just because you’re bound to ripen into does not mean you should not do anything to keep your bones from creaking. Strength training can help build bone density, protecting your bones from osteoporosis or osteopenia.

Focus on areas most prone to breaking from falls, such as the spine, hips, and forearms, by integrating a combination of deadlifts, bicep curls, and triceps extensions into your routine.

Post-training Essentials

A workout isn’t complete without hitting the shower to get yourself nice and clean for work – or . Keep a gym bag in your car so you won’t have an excuse to break your training streak or in case you want to sneak in a quick workout when a client cancels your meeting.

After giving your arm muscles a solid workout, boost your hair to health with Dove Men+Care Strengthening Shampoo. It is enriched with caffeine and calcium to help strengthen hair from root to end and make hair visibly thicker and fuller.

Whether hitting the gym or the road, don’t leave home without a good facial wash. POND'S Men Facial Wash Energy Charge instantly awakens tired-looking skin with its infusion of coffee bean extracts packed with antioxidants to repair skin damage from stress, late nights, and UV exposure.

Master Facial Wash Active Brightening has cooling ZEROil to control oil for up to eight hours, antibacterial agents to help prevent blackheads and whiteheads, and papaya extract to brighten skin. You're not just macho but gwapong Master pa!

If you’re that guy who focuses on or lower half, these seven reasons to get you lifting your way to a powerful upper body are only just the start. Strong arm muscles can improve your posture, and athletic performance, and decrease the risk of injuries as well as age-related atrophy. When it comes down to it, strong arms finish first.