Adopting a 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.”
Click here to see the four best exercises to build a bigger upper body.
