Creating a well-built upper body does more than improve your self-confidence when you are walking around the neighborhood shirtless on a hot summer day. It also helps improve your sports performance, even if it is recreational, and it helps improve your daily performance with functional tasks like laying heavy stones on the ground to create a patio. Working your upper body takes basic fitness levels and a high amount of discipline.
Step 1
Perform dynamic stretches before your workouts. Dynamic stretching moves your joints through a range of motion conducive to that which you experience in workouts. Do stretches like arm circles, shoulder rotations, arm crossovers, alternating toe touches, trunk twists and side bends.
Step 2
Target all of the major muscles above your belt line. The major upper body muscles include the pectorals, latissimus dorsi, trapezius, deltoids, triceps, biceps and rectus abdominis. These are anatomical names for the chest, back, shoulders, arms and stomach. Do not neglect any one of these areas to ensure you fully develop your upper body.
Step 3
Utilize compound exercises to form the base of your workouts. Compound exercises work more than one muscle at a time and they help you gain size and strength faster. Bench presses, shoulder presses, bent-over rows, triceps dips and twist curls are examples. Save isolation exercises for last, otherwise they can tire out your muscles when you do compound exercises. Lateral raises, biceps curls and triceps extensions are isolation exercises.
Step 4
Perform enough work to get a desired effect. Aim for eight to 12 reps with all of your exercises and do three to five sets per muscle group.
Step 5
Maximize your workouts by lifting the heaviest weights you can lift. This will ensure you are fully taxing your muscles and creating a favorable atmosphere for muscle growth. Have a spotter on hand to assist you with your exercises.
Step 6
Work your largest muscles first if you are doing multiple muscle groups in the same workout. Take a shoulders, triceps and biceps workout for example. Work your shoulders first, then your triceps and then your biceps. If you were to do triceps exercises, then try to push dumbbells over your head with a shoulder press, your arms would be tired out.
Step 7
Execute proper form with all of your exercises. Utilize a full range of motion, breathe out as you exert force and contract your muscles for a full second at the midpoint of the exercise. Take the bench press for example. Hold the barbell straight above your chest with your hands in a wide grip to start out. Lower it down slowly by bending your elbows and stop when it lightly touches your chest. Push back up in a steady motion and hold the top position for a second before lowering back down. Keep your core tight with this and all of your other exercises.
Step 8
Rest your muscles. It is OK to do upper body workouts two days in a row, just make sure you never target the same muscle group on consecutive days. This will compromise adequate recoveries and it will also increase your chances of suffering an injury like a pull or strain.
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