Your body adapts to the stress you impose on it. So if you want a stronger, bigger or better-toned chest, back or arms, you should include upper-body strength training in your regular workout routine. Although using the moving arms on an elliptical trainer will burn more calories than lower body exercise alone, and does help improve upper-body endurance, your chest, back and arm muscles are capable of handling much greater challenges. You need the intensive effort of strength training if you want to make major gains in muscular strength or endurance.
Muscles Worked
The major muscles of your upper body include the latissimus dorsi and trapezius, powerful pulling muscles in your back, and the pectoralis major and minor, pushing muscles in your chest. The rectus abdominus, obliques and erector spinae both move your spine and stabilize it against unwanted movement. Your triceps, the powerful pushing muscle in the back of your upper arm, is offset by the biceps in the front of your arm.
A good upper-body workout routine will work each pushing and pulling muscle combination together, or on alternating days, to preserve muscular balance and help you achieve optimal function.
Rest Days
Don’t get sucked into programs that require you to do a given upper-body exercise, such as push-ups, every day. Your muscles strengthen during the rest time between workouts, not during the actual workout. Skipping at least a full day before working the same muscle group again isn’t slacking; it’s giving your body a chance to build stronger muscles. A popular way of accommodating this, while still doing an upper-body workout every day, is working pulling muscles one day and pushing muscles the next day.
Types
Your upper body workout routines will be determined primarily by what exercise equipment is available. A gym membership provides ready access to free weights and weight machines for training your upper body. If you work out at home, a few dumbbells or a barbell and weight bench are sufficient. If you’re on a budget, invest in a few elastic resistance bands, or use your own body weight as resistance with exercises like push-ups and pull-ups.
Sets and Repetitions
How many sets and repetitions you do of each exercise depends on your ultimate fitness goal. The American Council of Sports Medicine recommends that healthy adults under age 65 do a single set of eight to 12 repetitions, each, of eight to 10 strength training exercises, twice weekly. To build strength, do multiple sets of four to eight reps, and for endurance, do multiple sets of 12 to 16 reps, as recommended by Jessica Matthews in the American Council on Exercise "Ask the Expert" column.
Considerations
If you want your muscles to keep developing, you must provide them with continually greater challenges. This is known as progressive overload. Once you can lift the desired number of sets and reps for any upper-body exercise without cheating, do a more difficult variation of the exercise or increase the weight by 5 to 10 percent.
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