Although I love hitting leg days way more, I still do love my arm days. Regular forearm training is crucial for fostering functional strength, but overall arm and upper-body strength are even more crucial. But also once I started training my arms more seriously, oh my god seeing the progress in my arm and back muscles was sooo satisfying. I literally have an addiction to constantly flexing my biceps now lol. Summer is also right around the corner coming around the corner, you know we gotta build that upper body so that when you wear those tanks and backless tops, those arms and back are going to look *chef kiss*. So here are some of my favorite upper body workouts that I love to hit!
All the exercises target these muscle groups:
- Push exercises – Targets pectoral (chest) muscles, lats, triceps, shoulders, and trapezius muscles (shoulders and upper back).
- Pull exercises – Targets upper back, center of the back, rhomboids (the top of the back), and bottom of the back.
- Flexion/Extension exercises – Targets biceps, triceps, wrist flexors and extensors, shoulder muscles, upper abs, chest, and back muscles.
Set and rep range varies for everyone but I personally always do 5 sets of 8-12 reps for each exercise.
LAT PULLDOWN
Lat pulldown is a great exercise to help develop the latissimus dorsi muscle, the largest back muscle that supports spinal stability and healthy posture. It helps build muscle in the back, shoulders, and arms and is one of the most popular workouts for developing the back and shoulders. It’s a mainstay of strength training and a great approach to develop upper-body muscular growth.
CABLE TRICEPS PUSHDOWN
Exercises like the cable pushdown help correct the triceps’ strength disparity with the biceps. Additionally, this exercise improves the muscles in the back, shoulders, and belly in addition to the upper arms. This exercise really helps to tone your arms but it also activates other muscle groups as stabilizers, including your glutes, lats, abs, traps, and pecs.
BICEP CURL
Biceps experience hypertrophy, or a rise in muscle size, as a result of bicep curls. Bicep curls are therefore very helpful if you want to tone your arms and make daily tasks easier! They are a great isolation exercise and so easy to learn and perform.
CHEST PRESS
Your pectorals, deltoids, and triceps are the focus of the chest press, which increases strength and muscle mass. Your biceps and serratus anterior are also worked. Bench press is definitely more effective in building upper body strength but chest press is just easier. I prefer to workout independently so if I do bench press, then I need someone to spot me which I don’t need when doing chest press.
OVERHEAD TRICEP EXTENSION
This is my favorite tricep exercise. The primary advantage of the overhead triceps extension is the triceps hypertrophy that results from the activity. The triceps extension activates all three heads of the triceps, which implies that it will strengthen your complete triceps in comparison to other triceps workouts. This exercise activates your core, glutes, and lower back muscles as stabilizers during the movement.
PUSHUPS
When I’m training my chest, pushups are one of my go to exercises. The pushup mainly works three muscles, your pecs, your front delts and your triceps. Pushups help to build and increase upper body strength and muscle mass. It targets the pectoralis major muscle in your chest, the triceps in your arms, and the scapular stabilizing muscles in your shoulders. You can do it anywhere, anytime and it doesn’t require any extra equipment so it’s a great exercise to do!
Pull-Ups
I recently just about a month ago started to learn how to do pull-ups and now I can’t stop doing them. Pull-ups develop and tone your shoulders, forearms, and chest (pecs), in addition to working your back. They are excellent exercises for targeting many of the major muscles in the body because when done correctly, they also engage your abs, especially your deep transverse abdominis.
There are so many more upper body workouts but these are personally just some of my favorites. They’re easy to learn and have helped me to effectively strengthen my upper body.