Resistance training for women has been undergoing a massive re-birth in fitness culture over the last few years. However, many of the exercises that have been focused on during this rise in popularity have been lower body exercises. Exercises such as squats and hip thrusts for building the legs and glutes are often the sole focus of many programmes or social media coverage, with the only upper body work including occasional abdominal exercises.
This excessive focus on lower body development can lead to an inefficient or sub-optimal training programme for both aesthetic and health benefits. This is because developing strength and lean muscle in the upper body can help increase metabolism, arm and back definition to emphasize the glutes and legs more, and improve health and functionality, as many of the day-to-day activities being carried out involve the upper body, like picking things up, carrying, pushing and pulling.
With that in mind, here are the five best upper body exercises for women:
- Dumbbell bench press
Much like for men, the bench press acts as the ultimate pressing exercise. It activates the chest, front shoulders, and triceps, while also developing upper body pushing strength, which is useful for movements such as reaching overhead, pushing or throwing objects or helping support the body when struggling with balance. The bench press and chest press are great ways to train your upper body strength if you can’t do pushups yet!
The best adaptation that proves beneficial for women is the use of dumbbells instead of barbells as the height of the breasts can cause a lower range of motion with a barbell, allowing greater range of motion when surpassing the chest with dumbbells and a greater development in strength and muscle development.
- Single arm dumbbell row
The single arm dumbbell row on a bench acts as an upper body pulling exercise, as well as a fantastic abdominal exercise. It incorporates the obliques, the biceps, back shoulders and upper back, making the dumbbell row a very efficient exercise that improves pulling and carrying while also helping to tone the arms and the waist, while also helping to prevent common shoulder injuries.
The use of dumbbells, like with the bench press is also to allow greater range of motion while also incorporating greater core muscle activation to save time in a workout.
- Overhead tricep extensions
One problem with common pressing exercises is that they fail to adequately stimulate the long head of the tricep, which is the only part of the three tricep heads that crosses the shoulder joint and attaches to the scapula in the back. Because of this, the best way to stimulate it is with the overhead extension exercise.
This will allow optimal development of the arms and help increase pressing strength, while also helping target under the arms which is often an area that many women wish to tone and lose fat from.
- Pull ups
Pull ups are the best exercise for targeting the Latissimus Dorsi muscles on the outside of the upper back, and is also one of the best exercises to develop pulling strength.
However, this exercise requires a lot of strength and is not as easy to adapt or reduce in difficulty as other pulling exercises such as rows. As such, using rows and “eccentric pull ups” to build up the strength to carry out a pull up can act as a good starting point. Alternatively, using an assisted pull up machine or using a thick exercise band for support can help you to build the necessary strength.
- Bent over rows
Bent over rows offer an easily adaptable exercise that can be varied in grip width to help target different muscles. The best part about bent over rows is they require your whole body to engage and stabilize you while you perform the row – the heavier you lift, the more it works your whole body, especially the glutes.
Stay tuned, friends. If you have fitness goals and need personal training or meal plans I can help! Serious enquiries only. Email now to emmersoncampbell@gmail.com or call 661-5954.
