As you step into 2025 the one thing you should be cautious of as a fitness enthusiast is your spending habits.
For starters, you can save money by adopting a home fitness routine today.
In our home fitness for strength building series for 2025, we begin with a 10-minute upper body home workout program that you can try out at any time of the day before work or even at night before bedtime.
What’s more, this is a no-equipment bodyweight upper body workout, so there will be no need for any costly equipment or local gym membership fees.
This home workout regimen is designed to help strengthen, tone and sculpt the major and minor muscle groups of your upper body and enhance your overall physique in the process.
In addition, you don’t have to be a seasoned fitness fanatic before embarking on this effective, quick, and beginner-friendly upper body home workout routine.
So if you are ready, let’s jump right into it by highlighting why you should invest your time building your upper body strength.
Why Should You Engage In Bodyweight Upper Body Workout?
Without a strong upper body you would find it very difficult performing simple everyday tasks. We are talking about daily activities like picking up light to heavy objects at home, such as lifting furniture, garbage bags, or even groceries.
With an upper body home workout, you will not only build your upper body strength and be able to accomplish basic and complex tasks with little or no assistance, you will also be able to enhance your flexibility and posture, reduce lower back pain, and improve your overall athletic performance.
Our 10-Minute No equipment Upper Body Exercises
Now that you have a fair idea of why you should take an upper body home workout seriously, it’s now time to take a look at our 10-minute daily fitness routine for building your upper body strength, improving flexibility and posture, and enhancing your overall athletic performance.
But before we drop the different upper body exercises you need to do in the comfort of your home, you should know that each of the exercises should be performed for about 45 seconds and once you are done with an exercise, you can take a break for about 15 seconds before your next exercise.
Also, you should try out the entire circuit a total of two times for optimal effect.
#1. Push-Ups
Begin your upper body home workout with push-ups. Push-ups are great for building your triceps, shoulders, and chest muscles. To perform push-ups, you need to start off in a plank posture with your hands right under your shoulders.
You then lower your entire body until it seems like your chest is about to touch the floor. It is at this point that you push back up until you reach your starting posture.
Try and perform as many repetitions (reps) as possible in 45 seconds by revving up the intensity of your push-ups.
However, if you are a beginner, we advise that you start off at a steady pace until you are comfortable with this exercise, only then should you consider increasing your pace and intensity for optimal performance.
For less intensity, you can modify the push-up routine by performing the exercise on your knees.
#2. Triceps Dips
The next exercise in this circuit is the triceps dips exercise. To perform this upper body exercise, you should start by sitting on the edge of a really sturdy couch or chair.
Place your hands beside your hips then slide off the edge of the couch or chair while you support yourself using your hands. You then have to lower your entire body to the floor and you do this by bending at your elbows.
Once you bend as low as you can, you use your hands while bending at your elbows to push yourself back up to the starting position. Repeat this exercise as many times as you can within a 45 second duration. As you might have guessed already, triceps dips help to build, tone and strengthen your triceps muscles.
#3. Plank Shoulder Taps
Plank shoulder taps make up the third no equipment upper body workout routine. You will build both your core and shoulders with this exercise. To perform the plank shoulder taps exercise, you need to start by holding the plank posture with your hands positioned right under your shoulders.
You then have to tap your right shoulder using your left hand followed by tapping your left shoulder using your right hand.
Maintain this sequence at a steady pace for 45 seconds while ensuring that your hips are kept steady all through the exercise.
#4. Pike Push-Ups
To perform the pike push-up exercise, you begin by positioning yourself in a downward dog posture while your hips are raised.
You then bend your arm at the elbows before lowering your head to the floor.
This should be followed by you pushing back to your starting posture and repeating the exercise as many times as you can in 45 seconds. Pike push-ups help in building your triceps and shoulders.
#5. Superman Hold
If you want to build the muscles of your shoulders and back, the Superman Hold exercise is just what you need. This exercise should be performed with you lying face down on the ground with your arms well extended in front of you.
You should then lift up your arms, chest, and legs from the floor and hold this posture for a total of 45 seconds before releasing.
As mentioned already, you should take a 15 second break between each exercise and you should run this circuit twice consecutively.
When you perform this upper body home workout routine, you will target every major muscle of your upper body including the muscles of your back, chest, core, shoulders, and triceps.
To know if you are progressing nicely, you should take a photo of yourself before you start this circuit and after one, two, three and four weeks of training.
It is also important to track your progress by keeping note of your reps for each exercise. Make sure you progressively increase your reps as the 45 second time limit for each exercise allows. The beauty of this home routine is that it is adaptable and can fit into your tight schedule with ease.
Our Upper Body Home Workout Tips for Success
Anyone can start our upper body home workout routine, but to be truly successful, you will need to abide by these three tips for success.
Tip #1: Consistency
You should stay the course by performing this circuit daily. Consistency will see you achieve impressive upper body strength, and endurance results in real-time.
Tip #2: Maintain Proper Form
It is important that whenever you perform any exercise you maintain proper form. Adopting the right posture and technique will help you to avoid preventable injuries, as well as increase the effectiveness of your training.
Tip #3: Adopt Progressive Overload
You should spice up your routine by increasing the reps for each exercise within a 45 second time frame. You can also increase your time limit if you want to include sets and more reps. Progressive overload is essential for building your upper body muscles, strength and endurance.
Conclusion
If you perform two circuits of our upper body home workout with 45 seconds for each exercise and a 15 second rest time before your next exercise, you would have spent only about 10 minutes of your day training your upper body.
This makes our bodyweight upper body workout one that you can do before you embark on your daily activities even if you have a busy schedule, you can still spare 10 minutes of your time a day.
Make sure to follow the three tips for success and you will be glad you did. If you want to chat with an IFBB PRO for more tips on how to improve your upper body strength you can get free coaching from an expert today.
