Let’s be honest. If you’re a gym bro then what you care about is your upper body. More specifically your bench press. I get that.
The purpose of this blog post is not to fight against that. Instead it is to help give you a guide as to how to better structure your uppers sessions (uppers being upper body). It's a quick look at a basic template that you can follow as you design your own session. Of course, ideally you are working with a coach (READ: 'me') who is experienced with programme design and designs it to suit you and your needs. But in the meantime, this post will give you some guidance.
So here we go:
Warmup. Always warm up. This doesn’t mean swing your arms in circles then do a couple of bench press reps with the empty bar then add a plate and repeat. No. It means a proper warm-up where you get your body fully warm and mobile. Yes, it’s an uppers session, but warm up your whole body and you’ll not only have a more effective and efficient session, but you’ll feel better for the rest of the day.
Next is the session. Structure it in 3 phases:
Power
Strength
Hypertrophy - chase the pump!
One or two powerful movements at the start is the way to go here. Could be clap pushups, power band rows, throwing or slamming balls. It will get your nervous system firing hard! That will get you lifting more in the rest of the session. You’ll also feel like a beast. 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps here.
This is where you can have your bench press. But superset it with a row. That way you’re maximising your time at the gym, as well as balancing out your development, so you’re not all push push push, but getting some good pulling strength too. This will help with your performance, as well as injury prevention. 3-5 sets of 3-8 reps on each exercise.
The fun stuff! You’ve done barbell bench press, possibly barbell row or pullups, now hit higher reps, and address imbalances at the same time. What does this mean? Use dumbbells. 3 sets of MAX reps here, aiming for 8-15 reps per set. For example, with incline db bench press, and single-arm row.
BONUS: arms now. Curl and a tricep variation. Superset. 3 sets to failure on each. Quick. Simple. Serves a purpose. Enjoy it.
With a thorough warm-up that could take you 30-40mins, depending on how heavy you lift, and so how much warm-up you need on each exercise. It’s time efficient, effective, getting you stronger and more powerful, as well as a ‘pump’ so that you leave the gym looking and feeling like $1million. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?
Get in touch to discuss how I can help with your own training,
Max
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