Adopting a good upper body workout doesn’t have to mean spending hours in the weight room.
“We know from research that it actually makes more sense to do fewer activities per workout, but at a higher frequency per week,” says Antony Brown, personal training leader. lifetime In Lake Zurich, Illinois.
a 2016 Study published in journal Sports Medicine found that when subjects with the same total weekly training volume lifted weights one, two or three times per week, the higher frequency group ultimately walked away with the greatest muscle growth.
“Instead of doing a full triceps workout or arm workout per week — which might be good for a professional bodybuilder who is in there all day, every day, and has all day to recover — the recreational lifter is going to get a lot more benefit from simply hitting the muscles more frequently over the course of a week,” says Brown.
“I’d go with four exercises,” says Matthew Accetta, MS, CSCS, exercise physiologist. hssJoe recommends performing two push exercises and two pulls for the most balanced results – one of each along the horizontal plane, such as the bench press and seated row, and one of each along the vertical plane, such as the shoulder press and chin-up.
And if you have time and want to do some isolation exercises for extra credit, do so! “If you had to pick four exercises to add strength and muscle to your upper body, I would do these four,” says Luke Carlson, founder and CEO of . discover strength. “That said, incorporating some single-joint movements will produce more hypertrophy. For example, if you add biceps exercises and triceps exercises, you’re going to increase the size and strength of those muscles.”
shoulder press
First, a vertical push exercise, and this is one you’ve surely seen, and probably done many times before. When it comes to the best shoulder exercises, the humble shoulder press is a classic for a reason. “We’re engaging the front of the shoulder, also known as the anterior deltoid, as well as the side of the shoulder, or medial deltoid, and we’re also engaging the triceps,” says Carlson. “We’re just covering so much.” You can do shoulder presses from a standing or sitting position. You can also choose between dumbbells or barbells, though Carlson recommends dumbbells for comfort as well as shoulder health. “There’s nothing wrong with a barbell,” he says, “but a dumbbell will be more comfortable for the shoulders, because your upper arms will be at a 45-degree angle.”
how to do it:
- If you’re doing the movements from a seated position, sit on a bench with back support, or an adjustable bench set at a 90-degree angle, with your feet flat on the floor.
- Hold a dumbbell in each hand and bring the weight to your shoulders. Instead of having your palms facing completely forward, you want your upper arms to be almost at right angles to each other. “Your elbows won’t be pointing straight out to the side, but they also won’t be aiming straight out in front of you,” says Carlson. This is your starting position.
- Engage your core and press the dumbbells straight overhead until you lock out at the elbows.
- Once you reach the top of the rep, slowly reverse the movement with control to return to the starting position. He is a representative.
