Two Upper Body Workouts That Will Make Your Muscles Grow

If you want a couple of highly effective upper body workouts designed for the sole purpose of making your muscles bigger, the two I’ve laid out on this page will get the job done.

Let’s get started.

The upper body workouts laid out below assume that you’re following an upper/lower split. This involves working all the major muscle groups for the upper body in a single workout.

The Upper/Lower Split

While there are a number of variations on the upper/lower split, for the sake of simplicity I’m going to assume that you train your upper body on Monday and Thursday, and your lower body on Tuesday and Friday.

Monday: Upper Body Workout
Tuesday: Lower Body Workout
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Upper Body Workout
Friday: Lower Body Workout
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off

You lift weights four days a week in total, with each muscle group trained directly twice a week.

Here’s what a very simple upper body training template might look like:

A Simple Upper Body Workout

Bench Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Lat Pulldown 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Seated Row 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Overhead Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps

For a lot of people, especially if you’re just getting started lifting weights, a program like this will work just fine.

You do the same upper body workout twice a week, and focus on improving your workout performance over time, either by doing more reps with the same amount of weight, or lifting a heavier weight for the same number of reps.

However, I think you’ll see better results using different weights and rep ranges, rotating between heavy and light upper body workouts. The first upper body workout might involve heavy weights and lower reps, while workout two would consist of lighter weights and higher reps.

This approach has been shown, in some studies at least, to accelerate muscle growth compared to sticking to the same rep range [3].

Upper Body Workout 1 (Heavy)

Bench Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Lat Pulldown 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Seated Row 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Overhead Press 3 sets of 5-8 reps

Upper Body Workout 2 (Light)

Bench Press 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Lat Pulldown 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Seated Row 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Overhead Press 3 sets of 10-15 reps

Again, this type of training program can work very well for a lot of people. But it can also be tweaked and improved still further.

For one, I think you’re better off using different exercises from workout to workout, rather than doing the same ones each time.

This helps to ensure more complete muscular development, reduces the risk of repetitive stress injuries, as well as keeping things interesting – doing the same exercises all the time can get boring.

There’s no direct arm work in there either. If bigger arms aren’t high up on your list of priorities, the biceps and triceps are worked indirectly during all the pushing and pulling exercises included in both upper body workouts.

Exercises like the bench press and incline dumbbell press, for example, will hit the triceps, while the lat pulldown and dumbbell row will work the biceps.

However, if one of your main goals is to build bigger arms, I think you’re better off training the biceps and triceps directly.

So, if we take all those things into account, here’s what your two upper body workouts might look like.

Upper Body Workout 1

Bench Press 3 sets x 5-8 reps
Pull-up OR Close Grip Lat Pulldown 3 sets x 5-8 reps
Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
Face Pulls 2 sets x 8-12 reps
Lateral Raise 2 sets x 8-12 reps
Incline Dumbbell Curl 2 sets x 10-15 reps
Triceps Pressdown 2 sets x 10-15 reps

Upper Body Workout 2

Push-ups 3 sets x AMRAP*
Wide Grip Front Lat Pulldown 3 sets x 10-15 reps
Cable Crossover 3 sets x 15-20 reps
Seated Row 3 sets x 10-15 reps
Cable Lateral Raise 2 sets x 10-15 reps
Bent Over Lateral Raise 2 sets x 15-20 reps
Hammer Curl 2 sets x 10-15 reps
Lying Triceps Extension 2 sets x 10-15 reps

* AMRAP = As Many Reps As Possible

How to Customize the Upper Body Workouts

The exercises that you do aren’t set in stone, and there’s nothing to stop you replacing them with something similar.

Most of the compound lifts you do for your upper body can be put into one of these categories:

Horizontal push (e.g. bench press)
Horizontal pull (e.g. dumbbell row)
Vertical pull (e.g. lat pulldown)
Vertical push (e.g. overhead press)

For example, both the seated row and dumbbell row are horizontal pulling exercises. As long as you’ve got a dumbbell, then you can do dumbbell rows.

Dumbbell Rows

But what if you’re training in a gym that doesn’t have a seated row machine?

You could do inverted rows (shown in the video below). You could do barbell rows. Or you could just do dumbbell rows again.

Inverted Rows

It’s the same story with a vertical pulling exercises like the lat pulldown. If, for whatever reason, you’re not able to do lat pulldowns, do pull-ups or chin-ups instead. They’re all variations on the same theme in the sense that they’re all vertical pulling movements.

Pull-ups/Chin-ups

And if you’re not strong enough to do pull-ups or chin-ups, you can use a suspension trainer or gymnastic rings to start off with an easier version of the pull-up, and progress over time as you get stronger.

TRX Pull-ups

You can apply the same principle to a horizontal pushing exercise like the bench press. If the bench press isn’t an option, you can use dumbbells, a chest press machine, or even push-ups.

While push-ups are often overlooked in favor of the bench press, they’re a very effective exercise for working the chest, shoulders and triceps.

Push-ups

During the push-up, the shoulder blade is able to move a lot more freely than it does during the bench press, making it a much more “shoulder friendly” exercise.

If you’ve got a dodgy shoulder that hurts when you bench press, switching to push-ups may well allow you to continue training your chest without a problem.

You may have noticed that there are no overhead pressing exercises in either of the two upper body workouts.

Why not?

During the overhead press, be it with barbells or dumbbells, it’s your anterior deltoids (the front part of your shoulder) that do most of the work.

However, the anterior delts are already getting plenty of stimulation from the chest exercises in both upper body workouts. So you don’t really need any extra work for the front of your delts.

If you want to throw in some overhead pressing exercises, such as the seated dumbbell press or standing overhead press, there’s no good reason why you can’t.

But I think you’re better off doing exercises that focus more on the side and rear delts – in this case the lateral raise, bent over lateral raise and face pulls.

Lateral Raise

Face Pulls

In the first upper body workout, you have the option of doing pull-ups or lat pulldowns. That’s because most people aren’t strong enough to do more than a few solid reps of pull-ups.

If you are one of those people, chances are you’ll get a much better workout for your lats with pulldowns than you will with pull-ups. With lighter weights and higher reps, you can focus on getting your technique right and really feel what your lats are doing.

Lat Pulldowns

Rather than tell you exactly how many reps to do in each set, I’ve given you a rep range to work in, such as 5-8 or 10-15.

For one reason or another, the rep range listed might not work for you. Maybe you only have access to a limited range of equipment. Perhaps a particular exercise done with a heavy weight makes your joints hurt.

If so, just choose a different rep range. If you prefer to work in a rep range of 8-12 rather than 5-8, or 15-20 rather than 8-12, there’s no reason why you can’t.

Most studies show that both high reps and low reps deliver similar rates of muscle growth. As long as you train hard and push yourself in each set, don’t worry too much whether you end up doing 5 reps or 10 reps or 20 reps. It’s the effort you put into each set that counts.