Are you new to bodybuilding? Do you want sustainable upper body gains, but you don’t know where to start?
Well, if you no longer need to be envious of fitness influencers showing off their impressive upper bodies with popping pecs and biceps, you too can be the envy of your friends.
But before we proceed you need to know that nothing comes easy and while this upper body blueprint is designed to help you achieve your upper body goals, you still need to put in the effort, commitment, and dedication needed to make your dreams happen.
With that being said, let’s dive right into our sure-fire program that puts you on the right path to minimising injury risks, and maximising effort, time and gains.
#1. Begin Your Program with Compound Exercises
The first thing you need to do is to start your training program with compound exercises. With compound exercises like bench presses, rows, pull-ups and overhead presses, you apply tension to a number of connective tissues, joints, and major muscle groups.
By including compound lifts in your training program you will stimulate muscle growth and improve muscle strength as you generate multiple hormonal and neural stimuli by activating a host of skeletal muscle fibers during your lifts.
If you want your daily training regimen to be balanced, you can combine your compound lifts with resistance training that ensure that your muscles work against an opposing force like your bodyweight, machines, cables, bands, and weights.
These resistance exercises primarily involve either vertical (push/pull) or horizontal (push/pull) movement(s). For your vertical push movements you can include the popular overhead press while for your vertical pull exercises you can include bodyweight pull-up and lat pulldown workouts.
As for the horizontal push workouts, you should try bench presses and push-ups while for the horizontal pull exercises you can try out the barbell row and chest-supported row workouts during your sessions.
The combination of resistance training and compound lifts in your scheduled sessions will help to improve your form and posture to minimise the risk of injuries during training.
#2. Take Progressive Overload Seriously
Increasing your training weights is not the only way to implement progressive overload. Progressive overload can be achieved in a number of ways including raising your set and repetition range and/or shortening your rest time(s). You can also control and manage the tempo at which you lift weights as well as enhancing your range of motion.
It is important to take your lifting tempo, weights, reps and sets seriously. You should take notes and track them at all times as you get to decide where to execute a progressive overload. Progressive overloads are best implemented on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to keep your muscles engaged and challenged for more tension that increases microtears that heal during recovery leading to muscle hypertrophy.
#3. Don’t Forget Accessory Exercises
If you want to stay balanced, build muscle and improve your strength, you need to include accessory exercises to your sessions. Accessory exercises should be done after you have run your primary compound lifts.
Accessory exercises help to boost your muscle strength, enhance the symmetry and balance of your muscles, improve performance, and prevent injury risks.
Imagine your compound lift being a bench press, your accessory exercises could be shoulder raises, dumbbell chest flyes, push-ups, triceps pushdowns. If your primary lift is a squat, then you could try out calf raises, hip trusts, leg curls, and lunges.
The key differences between your primary exercises and accessory exercises are as follows:
For your primary exercises your main focus should be on lifting heavy for maximum strength while accessory exercises tend to involve lighter weights, but with a greater rep range for muscle control and support.
#4. Ignore Your Warm-Up and Finisher Routines at Your Peril
You should take your warm-ups and finisher routines a bit more seriously if you want to avoid injuries. Imagine complaining about incessant shoulder pains during and after your sessions, it probably means that your scapular stabilizers may be weak.
You can enhance the health of your shoulders while boosting scapular control by engaging in exercises like scapular wall slides, banded external rotations, and face pulls (during your warm-up and finisher routines) to strengthen both your rotator cuff and mid-back region.
#5. Keep to a Moderate Upper Body Regimen
You need to prioritize your rest and recovery days if you want to build upper body muscles and strength. A typical upper body program can be implemented 2 or 3 times in a week. You can divide your upper body strength training regimen into either pull and push splits or a full upper body routine.
During recovery try to eat clean with lots of protein and don’t forget to stay hydrated before, during and after your sessions. As you work an upper body muscle group with your heavy compound lifts and intense accessory exercises, you should take a 2 day break to properly rest and recover before your next upper body training session.
#6. Beginner and Intermediate Level Upper Body Training Sessions
If you are a newbie, you should try performing your upper body training session twice a week. Your training regimen should place emphasis on performing three accessory exercises after one each of a compound press and compound pull workout.
For intermediate level bodybuilders, you can try three upper body training sessions in a week. During your sessions you should focus on perfecting your form as you combine technique, speed, lifting heavy, and volume lifts when you perform a mixture of upper hybrid, pull and push training.
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#7. Get Your Mindset Right and Diet/Nutrition on Point
If you are not motivated and/or mentally ready for the demands of an upper body training program, it is best to take time off to focus and be sure that you are ready to go. If your mindset is not right, you stand a great risk of picking up injuries that would only further slow down your upper body training and fitness goals.
Your nutrition is just as important as the training sessions, so you need to focus on maintaining a calorie surplus if your main goal is hypertrophy. When it comes to muscle growth, your protein intake should never be underestimated.
You should consume anywhere from 1.6 to 2.2 g per kilogram of bodyweight. But consulting with a dietician and/or nutritionist to ensure that your nutrition is tailor-made for your upper body training session.
Conclusion
To build a strong and refined upper body, you need to get your form right for each exercise while including a mixture of compound lifts and accessory exercises to target all muscle groups. Be mindful of your nutrition choices, keep your weekly sessions as moderate as possible and don’t skip rest and recovery as this promotes hypertrophy.
If you need more advice on training your upper body, you can reach out to us today and an IFBB PRO will be on hand to answer all your enquiries as soon as possible.
