The Best Upper-Body Workout to Get Jacked

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.”

Shoulder Press

First up, a vertical push exercise, and it’s one you’ve definitely seen, and probably done, many times before. When it comes to the best shoulder exercises, the humble shoulder press is a classic for a reason. "We're getting the front head of the shoulder, also known as the anterior deltoid, as well as the side of the shoulder, or the medial deltoid, and we're also involving the triceps,” says Carlson. “We're just covering so much shoulder.” You can do the shoulder press from a standing or seated position. You can also choose between dumbbells or a barbell, although Carlson recommends dumbbells for comfort as well as shoulder health. “There’s nothing wrong with a barbell,” he says, “but a dumbbell is just going to be more comfortable for the shoulder, because you're going to have your upper arms at a 45-degree angle.”

How to do it:

1. If you’re performing the movement from a seated position, sit on a bench with back support, or an adjustable bench set to a 90-degree angle, with your feet flat on the floor.
2. Grab a dumbbell in each hand and bring the weights up to your shoulders. Rather than having your palms facing completely forwards, you want your upper arms to be at roughly a right angle with one another. “Your elbows shouldn’t be pointing directly out to the sides, but they're also not aiming directly in front of you,” Carlson says. This is your starting position.
3. Brace your core and press the dumbbells directly overhead until you lock out at the elbows.
4. Once you’ve reached the top of the rep, slowly reverse the movement with control to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

Trainer tip:

If you prefer to use a barbell for the shoulder press—a variation known as the military press—be sure to avoid the common mistake of lowering the bar behind your head. “We want to avoid unnecessary abduction and external rotation, which is what happens when you go behind the head,” Carlson says. “For shoulder health, I would definitely go in front of the head.”

Chin-Up

For your vertical pull, there’s no need to overcomplicate things when the iconic chin-up will smoke your back and biceps just fine. Technically speaking, you could also do a pull-up, or even a lat pull-down. "I wouldn't necessarily say that there's a benefit of one over the other,” says Accetta. “But some people just aren't physically strong enough to complete chin-ups or pull-ups, whereas if they do a lat pull-down, they can probably do a little bit more, weight wise, because they're seated and they can kind of use a little bit of leverage.” That said, if you are able to string together a couple of reps on the bar, Carlson recommends opting for chin-ups. “I prefer a chin-up, with palms facing you, because it puts the biceps in a stronger position, which means you can generally push your lats harder,” he says. “The key here is to come down slowly and get some eccentric work.”

How to do it:

1. Hop up to grab a pull-up bar with an underhand grip, palms about shoulder width apart and facing you.
2. Hang with your arms totally straight. You should feel a light stretch in your lats. This is your starting position.
3. Engage your lats and slowly pull yourself up until your chin moves just past the bar.
4. Slowly reverse the movement with control to return to the starting position. Carlson recommends pulling up for two seconds, pausing at the top of the rep for one second, and then lowering yourself back to the starting position for four seconds. That’s one rep.

Trainer tip:

If you’re not strong enough to do chin-ups just yet, Carlson recommends using an eccentric-only version of the exercise to build up your strength. “Use a bench or box to climb up to the top position of a chin-up, and then just lower yourself for 10 seconds,” he says. “You’re not even pulling up—just starting up top, and lowering yourself incredibly slowly.”

Chest Press Machine

Moving on to the horizontal plane, and it’s another golden oldie: the chest press—a proven way to pump up your pecs and triceps. “This could be with dumbbells, a barbell, or a machine,” says Carlson, although there’s a nuanced reason to pick the latter if you’re after maximum muscle. "Ideally, you’d do this on a machine instead of with free weights, because you get more humeral adduction with load,” he says. Humeral adduction being the movement of your humerus, or upper arm, towards the midline of your body. “If you think about a barbell, your humerus is actually not adducting that much, because your hands barely come together; and you can pull the weights together with dumbbells, but there's no load, since gravity is only acting in one direction,” Carlson says. “But a well-designed machine will put more resistance against the humerus adducting.”

How to do it:

1. Sit down in a chest press machine and ensure the seat is adjusted to a height that allows you to comfortably press the handles directly in front of you.
2. Grab the handles, make sure your back is flush against the back rest, and brace your core. This is your starting position.
3. Press the handles straight ahead until your arms are locked out, and pause for a count.
4. Maintaining tension in your core, slowly reverse the movement to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

Trainer tip:

You might be tempted to start your workout with the bench press, as most guys do, but resist the urge—at least until you’ve done one of your pulling exercises. “I often like to start with something that targets the back, specifically the lats,” says Brown. “Once we get those engaged, not only is it working the muscles we want to work, but it's also going to warm us up for our pressing, since we use the lats to stabilize in those exercises.”

Seated Row

"The last exercise would be a seated row, and this could be done using a machine or even a cable station where you're seated on the floor and you're holding on to a narrow-grip handle,” says Carlson. Either way, the movement is one of the most user-friendly horizontal pulls, allowing you to maximize the benefits while reducing your chance of injury due to poor form. "A row of any sort—whether it be a dumbbell row, a barbell row, or a seated row with a machine—where you're really kind of squeezing your shoulder blades together and getting that scapular retraction, is going to target your rhomboids and your lower traps—and you're also going to get a bit of biceps in there,” says Accetta. And if you happen to be wondering about your posterior delts, the one major shoulder muscle that we didn’t hit with the shoulder press, don’t worry—the seated row hits those, too.

How to do it:

1. The most likely setup for a seated row is a cable station with attached bench and foot plate. Sitting on the bench, set your feet on the platform with a slight bend in your knees.
2. Lean forward and grasp the handle with both hands, and then sit up nice and tall with your core tight, lats engaged, and arms outstretched in front of you. This is your starting position.
3. Keeping your upper body as still as possible, drive your elbows back to pull the handle towards you. Focus on drawing your shoulder blades together.
4. Pause for a count at the peak of the contraction, and then slowly reverse the movement to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

Trainer tip:

If your gym has one, opt for the seated cable row that has a built-in pad for your chest—also known as the chest-supported seated row. "When you’re leaning forward into that pad, you can't rock at all,” says Carlson. “That way, you can be completely focused on driving your elbows back.”