Secret behind First Lady Michelle Obama's arms finally revealed
BY Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, September 8th 2009, 4:00 AM
Agostini/APFirst Lady Michelle Obama during a public appearance earlier this year. Related NewsArticlesDaly: Our kids need Obama's wisdomFired-up Obama: 'It's time to act' on health careMichelle Obama debuts on Forbes' 100 most powerful women listBarack Obama vs. Michelle Obama: Who is more popular? From Moscow with Style: Michelle, Obama girlsMichelle Obama brings her glamour to Russia Levi: Sarah Palin tried to hide daughter's pregnancyCarla Bruni, Woody Allen muse? She'll be in his next film - reportThe Pucci Touch: How a mannequin repair shop became city's top furniture showroomObama's magic touch boosts Martha's VineyardEditorial: Japan's space cadetMichelle Obama's longtime trainer is breaking his silence, spilling the workout secrets that keep the First Lady fit for her favorite sleeveless outfits.
"She's truly committed herself to the importance of health and fitness," Cornell McClellan tells Women's Health magazine.
McClellan, who began training Obama in 1997, said her sculpted arms are mostly the result of tricep pushdowns and hammer curls.
The trainer, who owns the Naturally Fit fitness center in Chicago, reveals the First Lady usually does an intense calorie-burning cardio workout.
Once she gets the blood flowing and the muscles pumping, she tops it off with "arm-shaping supersets" on a machine and with free weights, he said.
Using a straight bar attached to the high pulley of a cable station, she'll do as many tricep pushdowns as she can without resting. The exercise also works her now-famous deltoids.
She'll follow that with a set of hammer curls using dumbbells to work her biceps, McClellan said.
She'll do up to three sets of tricep pushdowns and hammer curls per workout, he said.
Obama told Children's Health that she's trying to set a good example for her daughters, Sasha and Malia, by working out and keeping a healthful diet.
While her husband is known to seek out hamburgers every now and then, the First Lady said she has eliminated most processed foods from the First Family diet and has added more fresh fruits and vegetables.
"But health and fitness and how we eat and thinking about it has become part of our lives, because of our kids," she told the magazine.
"We are their primary role models. And if they see me exercising and thinking about what I'm eating, if they see their father, as busy as he is, getting to the gym and playing sports, when they grow up they'll understand that this is a natural part of being an adult," the First Lady said.
whutchinson@nydailynews.com
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