The Five Best Exercises To Add Upper Body Muscle
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The first thing to say about adding upper body muscle is that it’s a lot easier to do if you don’t neglect lower body training.
I know this sounds weird, but remember that most of the some of the largest muscles in your legs and butt are among the largest muscles in your entire body, and the secret to getting bigger is to build the largest muscles in the body first.
For that reason, unless you have a genuine physical condition that stops you from either dead lifting or squatting, make sure you pay your dues with one of these exercises.
I’d also add the leg press to that – so rule number one is don’t neglect lower body training.
This produces the anabolic effect that you need to build muscle. It also makes it much easier to add muscle to other parts of your body – a bit like throwing a stone into a pond – the larger the stone the more ripples it creates.
Similarly, the larger the muscle you train, the easier it becomes to get the smaller muscles to grow as well – they come along for the ride.
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This is called “indirect effect.”
Now to upper body mass builders;
Again, focus on compound exercises where possible. This is a more efficient way to train because you want to exercise the major muscle groups with as few movements as possible, giving you more time for recovery, and just as important, to get on with the other things in your life!
Take a look at this group of exercises;
Bench press, overhead press, dip, chin, shrug.
These are the only mass builders you will ever need for training the upper body. You don’t even need all of them! The first three are pushing movements and the last two are pulling movements.
I’d suggest that you pick a pushing exercise, and then follow with a pulling exercise. You’ll probably find it easier to train them both hard if you follow this plan instead of following a pushing exercise with another pushing exercise, or a pulling exercise followed by another pulling exercise.
If you’re just starting out with the weights then you may not be able to do the chin up – in which case you could do the pull down exercise if you have access to that equipment, or you could do negative chins until you have the strength to do a normal chin up.
All the other exercises you should be able to do.
It’s vital to add small amounts of weight to the bar whenever possible. Don’t be in too much of a hurry adding weight though, or your body won’t have a chance to adapt to the extra stress you place on it.
Make sure that you learn the right way to do the exercises, so that;
1/ You get the maximum muscle building effect and
2/ You greatly reduce the chance of injury.
Good luck!
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