Earlobes and Arm Flaps

Our skeletons (except our skulls and pelvises, which leaves ample opportunity for suggestive commentary from which I will kindly refrain) stop growing before we reach twenty. Our noses, earlobes, and ear muscles, however, appear to enlarge.

It’s an unfortunate illusion caused by connective tissue and cartilage cells dividing and weakening as we age, allowing these body parts to stretch. Meanwhile, the rest of our body begins to shrink, increasing the contrast and decreasing our dignity.

Perhaps even more humiliating for women are arm flaps, which are also sometimes charmingly referred to as “bat wings.” These usually appear suddenly, perhaps because we don’t spend much time looking at our arms in the mirror when there are so many other alarming developments to divert our attention.

Upper arm flab can be exacerbated by genetics, hormone levels, stress, reduced activity, and age. Lack of skin elasticity and reduced activity also can allow the skin to hang more loosely, perhaps making things look worse than they are.

The good news: these flaps can be addressed by strength training our triceps with enough of a load, volume, and frequency to fill out the skin underneath our arms.

It goes without saying (but of course I will anyway) that this calls for exercise. If you’re overweight, losing body fat will help as you build up your tricep muscles. These muscles on the back of your arms aren’t used much in daily activities, but strengthening and building them will help “fill” the flaps.

Try exercises including tricep push ups, tricep step-ups, tricep dips — none of which require fancy equipment—to see results in four to six weeks. You may want adult supervision (not to mention accountability) to work on these exercises or use them as a quest to pursue at the gym.