Building upper body strength

redout

Hey,

Need some advice on building upper body strength.

Should I join a gym and work on resistance machines, weights etc or just go for the cheap pull-up bar installed at home?

The goal is primarily to be able to do heaves, press-ups etc at a respectable level.

marathonic

redout wrote: »

Hey,

Need some advice on building upper body strength.

Should I join a gym and work on resistance machines, weights etc or just go for the cheap pull-up bar installed at home?

The goal is primarily to be able to do heaves, press-ups etc at a respectable level.

The gym would be best if you can afford it. Pull-ups are a lot more difficult than most people remember from childhood and there's a good possibility that, unless you have relatively good upper body strength (the back in particular), you won't even be able to do one.

With the gym, you can train using a more well-rounded routine and build the strength up towards pullups and weighted pullups.

If you must train at home, I'd suggest a few kettlebells or something in addition to the pullup bar.

discus

Hola Redout!

Just so we know, how many chin ups can you achieve? What about push ups and sit ups - whats your 2 minute max for them?

redout

marathonic wrote: »

The gym would be best if you can afford it. Pull-ups are a lot more difficult than most people remember from childhood and there's a good possibility that, unless you have relatively good upper body strength (the back in particular), you won't even be able to do one.

With the gym, you can train using a more well-rounded routine and build the strength up towards pullups and weighted pullups.

If you must train at home, I'd suggest a few kettlebells or something in addition to the pullup bar.

I am not too concerned about pull-ups at the moment at least.

Focusing on chin-ups at first which I have been told are somewhat easier for starting out.

In the gym what types of machines should I be looking at - lat pulldown etc?

discus wrote: »

Hola Redout!

Just so we know, how many chin ups can you achieve? What about push ups and sit ups - whats your 2 minute max for them?

No idea - havent tried any yet so I presume it wont be much.

Will approach this from a complete beginner level.

My workouts for the past year have been all cardio which I found excellent for weight loss but I havent required weight loss for about 8 months at this stage and want to build my upper body.

As I said already my goal is to able to do chin-ups and press-ups at a respectable level.

I presume if one can do press-ups then pull-ups shouldnt be that much harder perhaps?

discus

Maybe someone will correct me, but I don't think there is much (if any) carryover from push-ups to pull-ups.

I am not too concerned about pull-ups at the moment at least.

Focusing on chin-ups at first which I have been told are somewhat easier for starting out.

In the gym what types of machines should I be looking at - lat pulldown etc?

Personally, I wouldn't bother with the lat pull down. Good for working the lats all right, but not quite the same. If you can manage a few chin ups, then you could start adding weight by using a belt, and that will increase your numbers eventually. Or if you can get your hands on a resistance band (think giant elastic band) you can loop that onto a chin up bar, and use that too to some effect.

BTW What are ya waiting for? If you have 5 mins spare (NOW) use it to see how many push ups and sit ups you can do in 2 mins. At least you'll know.

marathonic

Like you, my routine used to consist of cardio only as I'd about 20-25 lbs of fat to lose.

After that, it consisted of the machine weights and I'd do the following:

Old Routine

Leg Extension
Leg Curl
Lat Pulldown
Shoulder Press
Triceps Push Down
Leg Press
Back Extension
Chest Press
Seated Row
Abs Machine
Machine Fly
Biceps Curl

I did the above full body routine about three times weekly. Whilst I did progress, it was slow and I always knew free weights were better but didn't move to them as they were "new" to me and I thought I'd need a personal trainer to show me the excercises.

Since May 6th, I've moved to a free weights routine that can be seen below (with youtube videos as my 'personal trainer'). Even though I'm only at this seven weeks, I'm noticing that I'm getting stronger a lot faster. There's probably two factors at play here - the free weights routine is a lot better and I've upped the calories as I no longer need to lose weight.

Current Routine

Workout A

Dumbbell Squat (with one dumbbell held to chest)
Dumbbell Deadlift (with a dumbbell in each arm)
Overhead Dumbbell Swing
Dips
Hanging Lateral Leg Raise
One Arm Row

Workout B

Dumbbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Dumbbell Renegade Row
Chinups
Hanging Shrug
Dumbbell Shrugs

The above workout is done 3 times a week and I alternate workout A and workout B.



To be honest, I spent a lot of time trying to come up with 'the perfect routine for me' but you're better just getting stuck in and making improvements as you go along with minor tweaks here and there. If my gym had a squat rack (not smith machine), the above routine would be different but it suits me for now.


If your diet is poor, you'll have a lot of bother outtraining it. With a proper diet, you'll probably make more progress in 2 months than you will in a year with a poor diet. Post your diet if you'd like people to comment on it.

squod

Assisted press ups, from the knees instead of the foot/toes. Supine rows (under hand) for the back. If you're starting from scratch, that's what I'd do.

(Can't attach YouTube vids for some reason now)

greenman667

Redout - I'll give my 2 cents worth.

In your initial post you said that gaining strength was your primary goal.
You also mention upper body strength, but I'll ignore that - just do mention if you have an injury that'll stop you from working your lower body.
64 odd % of your muscle mass is located below the equator after all.

Anyway - if you want to get strong, free weights are the way to go.

Step 1 is to find a gym - a proper one.
By proper, I mean one with at least 1 squat / power rack.

Step 2 is to Google 'Starting Strength' by Mark Rippetoe.
This pretty much does what it says - it's a beginners' weight training program / philosophy.

Step 3 - do it.

You'll probably need to figure out your diet too but there are plenty of threads about that here.