Many women believe that the only way to tone flabby arms or any other part of their bodies is to work out for hours in the gym every week. For anyone who has an extremely busy life, this is impossible and unnecessary. We would all like to have toned and sexy arms and bodies, but not if it's going to take up all our time.

You will be pleased to know that you need not work out for hours in order to achieve your dream body. Here we will bust apart commonly held belief about building muscle.

Myth Number. 1 - Working out for longer is better
 You will be surprised to hear that even working out for more than hour can start having adverse effects on your body. This is because over excercising can cause problems such as injuries, pain, and increase stress on the body. This can cause you to feel anxious, lethargic and exhausted.

The answer is to simply keep your workouts short, but intense. Working hard for only 20 minutes is more effective than working for an hour or more. Keep your intensity high for the whole 20 minutes and try and get a sweat going within the first 5 minutes. It is certainly easier to fit in 20 minutes of intense exercise into your routine than longer sessions.

Mistake No. 2 - Lifting weights will make you look big and bulky
There are many women who work out with heavy weights and they still look lean and toned. They certainly do not look like a female version of ArnoldSchwarzenneger! It is absolute nonsense that lifting weights will make you look big and bulky. If that were so, you'd better stop carrying heavy shopping bags or lifting your child.

If you don't use weights you won't be able to build muscle, raise metabolism and burn off calories effectively. The solution is to lift as heavy weights as you can handle, for 6-12 reps. It is only through using heavy weights that you can start to develop lean, defined and sculpted arms.

Mistake No. 3 – low or medium intensity workouts are better

When you work out with heavy weights at high intensity, you force your body to increase the amount of calories it burns during your workout, which last for the rest of the day. Just think how great it could be burning calories even whilst we sit in front of the computer. This is called the after-burn effect. This certainly doesn't happen with low or medium intensity workouts.

Working out at a high intensity for at least 20 minutes will take advantage of the after-burn effect. Make sure every minute counts. Lift weights that are as heavy as you can manage safely for 6-12 repetitions. You can do a couple of minutes skipping to keep your heart rate going between repetitions and have a 30 second rest before carry on.

We hope this has busted the most commonly held myths about muscle building. If you want to know more about how to tone flabby arms then visit my tone flabby arms website for a complete program that takes less than 90 minutes per week. Now that sounds great to me!