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The Best Upper-Body Workout to Get Jacked
Adopting an good upper-body workout doesn’t have to mean endless hours spent toiling in the weight room.
“We know from research that it actually makes much more sense to do fewer movements per workout, but at a higher frequency per week,” says Antony Brown, personal training leader at Life Time in Lake Zurich, Illinois.
A 2016 study published in the journal Sports Medicine found that when subjects with the same total weekly training volume hit the weights once, twice, or three times per week, the higher-frequency groups ultimately walked away with the biggest muscle gains.
“Rather than doing a full triceps workout or arm workout per week—which might be good for a professional bodybuilder who’s in there all day, every day, and has all day to recover—the recreational lifter is going to get a lot more benefit from just hitting the muscles more often over the course of a week,” says Brown.
“I would go with four exercises,” says Matthew Accetta, MS, CSCS, exercise physiologist at HSS, who recommends doing two push exercises and two pulls for the most balanced results—one of each along a horizontal plane, like a bench press and seated row, and one of each along a vertical plane, such as a shoulder press and chin-up.
And if you have the time and want to throw in a couple of isolation exercises for extra credit, go for it! “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, including a few single-joint movements will produce more hypertrophy. For example, if you add a biceps exercise and a triceps exercise, you’re going to increase the size and strength of those muscles.”
Shoulder Press
First up, a vertical push exercise, and it’s one you’ve definitely 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 getting the front head of the shoulder, also known as the anterior deltoid, as well as the side of the shoulder, or the medial deltoid, and we’re also involving the triceps,” says Carlson. “We’re just covering so much shoulder.” You can do the shoulder press from a standing or seated position. You can also choose between dumbbells or a barbell, although Carlson recommends dumbbells for comfort as well as shoulder health. “There’s nothing wrong with a barbell,” he says, “but a dumbbell is just going to be more comfortable for the shoulder, because you’re going to have your upper arms at a 45-degree angle.”
How to do it:
- If you’re performing the movement from a seated position, sit on a bench with back support, or an adjustable bench set to a 90-degree angle, with your feet flat on the floor.
- Grab a dumbbell in each hand and bring the weights up to your shoulders. Rather than having your palms facing completely forwards, you want your upper arms to be at roughly a right angle with one another. “Your elbows shouldn’t be pointing directly out to the sides, but they’re also not aiming directly in front of you,” Carlson says. This is your starting position.
- Brace your core and press the dumbbells directly overhead until you lock out at the elbows.
- Once you’ve reached the top of the rep, slowly reverse the movement with control to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.
