Increasing Upper Body Strength

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I'm planning on trying to build up some muscle through my arms, shoulders, etc and want to do it right. I fear my main problem will be getting started, as currently I can barely do 5 pushups.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Double points if you started from my level (pathetically weak)
 
I've been wondering the same, plus I had not been working out for months since my old job placed me on working god awful hours.

I'm still trying to figure out how to avoid lower back pain when doing push ups and sit ups as well as preventing it from occurring when running (aside from the legs getting tired and achy).
 
I know exactly what you feel like. I know that i could barely do a single push-up without it hurting. The best way to do so is to join a gym and get advice on building up your body strength. If you are having trouble with push-ups, then start on your knees when you do that to lower the resistance and build it up from there. Once you can do it easily on your knees, being at a 90 angle, then you move your knees further out to get more resistance until you can contantly do push-ups on your full range.
 
Start with those five. Do as many as you can until your muscles fail you. Rest for a day and then repeat.

Your shoulders will probably hurt as well as your lower back. Embrace it.
 
The first trick to building muscle strength is to work the muscle. You've got to engage in resistance exercise. At that point, everything else is fine tuning.

There're two components to a muscle movement: the contraction (the 'concentric') portion and the release (the 'eccentric') portion. There're different levels of strength in each of these. If you're too weak to push your dumbell around, one trick is to 'cheat' the weight into position and try to lower it as slowly as possible (if you can't lower it over a timespan of six seconds, it's too heavy).

Specifically with pushups: a trick would be to start in the extended position, and to lower yourself as slowly as possible. Try to lower yourself over the course of 20 seconds. This not only requires less strength that pushing up (and so you're building muscle at your strength level), but is a good way of tricking the muscle into building endurance.
 
The first trick to building muscle strength is to work the muscle. You've got to engage in resistance exercise. At that point, everything else is fine tuning.

There're two components to a muscle movement: the contraction (the 'concentric') portion and the release (the 'eccentric') portion. There're different levels of strength in each of these. If you're too weak to push your dumbell around, one trick is to 'cheat' the weight into position and try to lower it as slowly as possible (if you can't lower it over a timespan of six seconds, it's too heavy).

Specifically with pushups: a trick would be to start in the extended position, and to lower yourself as slowly as possible. Try to lower yourself over the course of 20 seconds. This not only requires less strength that pushing up (and so you're building muscle at your strength level), but is a good way of tricking the muscle into building endurance.

Ditto what El_Mach said above.

I don't know if I was incapable of five pushups, but I've been pretty out of shape and overweight for the last decade compared to when I was in the Navy (particularly while at USNA, where I could knock out a hundred 'good' pushups in two minutes). But in June of '09 my wife and I got serious about changing that, and we cut out the big desserts and most of the soft drinks, started generally eating healthier, and started going to the local gym five early mornings a week, it is $10/month at the local Planet Fitness for each of us. At the gym I started with 30min/day of cardio (stationary bike was the best place for me to start) for a few weeks, and then we started (and still do) upper body weight training Mon/Thur and lower body Tue/Fri followed all four days by 30min of cardio (treadmill, elliptical, or cross-trainer), and on Wed it is just 45-50min of straight cardio.

She's lost almost 80lbs since we started, and I'm closing in on 50lbs lost to bring me to 200lbs (which for my stocky 5'8" physique isn't too bad). On the weight machines (where I do three sets of a dozen repetitions each), I'm generally at double to triple the weight that I started with. I'm still not in the shape that I was in while at USNA, but hey I'm over 40 now where I was 18-21 back then. I do know that I'm feeling far better than I was a year ago; I can go up a couple flights of stairs without getting winded (the other day I ran a 27min30sec 5K on the treadmill) and I can easily do a couple dozen pushups at a shot now - I haven't actually tried to see how many I can do, maybe I'll do that today.

Anyway, my point is do something. Just about anything you can do today is better than waiting for tomorrow or next week or next month. Start small, but start today and stick with it. I'd suggest doing two pushups in the morning and two in the evening. Tomorrow, three each. Increment by one daily, or every other day, or whatever your body allows. Your shoulders will be sore to some degree at first, but after a few days and they get used to the motion they won't get sore anymore. But rather than focusing on pushups, I'd very much recommend getting your whole body in shape - the pushups will come along, no fear of that, and you'll also get nice definition in your calves and biceps, generally feel better about yourself, and have generally better and more useful strength and endurance in all sorts of everyday tasks.
 
Don't worry about the weak thing. There is always a resistance exercise appropriate for a given level of strength. Just make sure you are balancing your push with your pull. If you are doing chest make sure to work your back too. Due to genetics/body type, you might never be huge, but that isn't important. You can be very strong at any given body type. Quite frankly the key is discipline and persistence. You will simply have to keep at it for years. The reason not everyone is walking around ripped has nothing to do with genetics; it is about habit. You want to make working out an OCD thing for you. Of course, never push so hard that you injure yourself.

USEFUL TIPS:
Weights:

If you want to do weights/resistance every day, a great rule of thumb is to rotate between push and pull. One day do your push stuff (chest and triceps) and then the next day do your pull (biceps, back). Exercises tend to naturally divide between these muscle groups anyway. It is a handy way to make sure your muscles get a day of rest while requiring no notepad to plan. You can even do a once or twice a week day of heavy leg exercises. Being larger muscles, your legs will require more time to recover.

Cardio:

Like Igloodude said, stationary bike is a great place to start. It doesn't matter how good you are relative to other people; simply make sure you are doing about 30min of vigorous exercise per workout. A good rule of thumb for intensity is that you should be uncomfortable, sweating, and unable to talk the whole time. You will get better/faster/stronger, but that feeling should be the same... always pushing your frontier. If you can have a conversation, you aren't trying hard enough and are probably wasting precious time. If possible, use a bike with some sort of stats feedback where you can compare from workout to workout. It makes it less painfully boring, and you can make yourself little goals each day. When you start seeing your Calorie/workout go up over time, it is very rewarding.

Don't bother fiddling with the weight calibration on the cardio machine. In fact, it is best to have it constant even as your actual body weight changes for easy comparison reasons. It is also faster to get going and you can just change resistance manually. You aren't literally worried about the number of Calories you burn; it is just a useful relative measure from workout to workout. The calibration isn't important. This might sound trivial and esoteric, but this is the first thing you will deal with when you go to do cardio.

Use the bloody toeclips. You get an entire upswing motion, working your hams and making your time more efficient. This is not natural to most casual bike riders, so concentrate on making a habit of it. Your pull should be as vigorous as your push. Don't just stand on them, make them nice and snug. Your foot shouldn't be lifting off the pedal. After a while, you won't be able to stand on a clip-less pedal without immediately falling off :)

Don't use too much resistance There is a tradeoff between resistance and cadence (RPM). This isn't just for biking, but most cardio exercises. It is good to mix up one or the other throughout workouts for variety, but most beginners tend to systematically use too much resistance with too few RPM. Spinning at 90-110 RPM for long stretches is very good. Jumping up to 130+ for short, furious streches is good too. If you have to lower resistance a lot to maintain it, so be it.

General:

Use your time efficiently. Whether weights or cardio, learn to not waste time. You might have hours to waste at the gym when you are young without a girlfriend or family. However, this is a long-term project in your life and your time circumstances will change. You will have to fit workouts in before work/school/dates/driving kids and whatever else life asks of you. Right from the beginning you should be learning to be quick. This is part of why you don't mess around with the settings on the bike... just go and adjust manually. Rest between weight sets, but don't flop around on the bench yacking for 10 minutes. Learn the discipline to start your next set ASAP.

Make certain exercises "interstitial". Resting your triceps between chest and tricep extensions? You might as well like down on the mat and flop around to get your abs worked. Abs are great for this purpose. Waiting for a machine? Lie down and do abs.

If you are with a friend, the two of you can rotate between two different machines. As soon as you are done a chest set, jump on the leg machine your friend was using. He can jump on the chest machine. Keep rotating so that you are always pushing something while resting your muscles and saving time.

Your workout routine will not be sustainable if it takes too long.
 
if you have a climbing wall nearby, and you aren't scared of heights, then i'd recommend going a few times. it gets your upper body in fantastic shape.
 
Lot's of good advice already given here, so I'll just repeat what others said:

1. The most important thing is just that you do something, and that you start now.

2. Join a gym and have them show you what to do.

3. Strenghten your entire body, not just the upper body. Partly because you'll look ridiculous with skinny legs and partly because you'll easily get damages if your body strenght isn't harmonic.
 
Oh, and doing situps is only a necessary condition for having your abs show, not a sufficient one. Burning the fat off of them with cardio is the other necessary condition.

Of course, if you are like me, no matter how much cardio you do, you will just increase pizza consumption proportionately. :lol:
 
Far be it from me to state the blindingly obvious, but I suggest joining a gym and lifting some weights.

This, the weaker you are, the less it matters what you actually do, in order to get results.

I'd recommend compound barbell and bodyweight exercises. (bench press, chinups, squats, deadlifts, press, rows, hit pretty much everything important)

Being larger muscles, your legs will require more time to recover.

Nah, being larger muscles, my legs are super strong, and I can do squats every other day. :smug:
 
I'll say something new and important, since no one has mentioned this.

If you want to build your upper body, you have to build your lower body. Your lower body has a supermajority of the largest muscles in your body. To release more hormones that will rebuild muscles stronger and bigger, you need to work the largest muscles, which are your quads, glutes, and hams. That means doing squats, deadlifts, straight-leg deadlifts and lunges will make your arms, shoulders, and back stronger.

I'd recommend doing pushups until your arms hurt, resting, and doing more. If you're sore for more than a day, then you are doing too much. The nice thing about your level of fitness is there will be major improvements more quickly, and it won't really matter what you do. Just exercising will be great for you.

Also, nutrition and rest make a big difference. Don't drink as much (especially the day of a workout or the next day), get your 8 hours, and have protein and vegetables, with less sugar than you used to.
 
When I was 13 my doctor told me to use 10 pound weights and do curl ups, 8 curl ups per arm. And once I could do 8 nice and slow without breaking a sweat i should move up slowly and use bigger weights. I never did, instead I now do like maybe 20 per arm with the ten pounders and maybe like 25 to 30 push ups once or twice a week. I'm not super built or anything but my arms have clear defined muscle when I flex.
And abs are ridiculously easy to get if you're thin to begin with. I only do 100 sit ups a day, it takes maybe 5 or 6 minutes, and then I do this thing where you hang your legs up at a 90 degree angle for like 5 seconds and then you almost let your ankles hit the floor and you do this 15 times, it works really great.
And to build muscle in my legs i run up and down stairs and jog in my neighborhood, but I'm sure bikes and bicycles work just as well.
 
Well, I don't want to have to spend any money if possible, I don't really have any to spare at the moment.

Ultimately, the reason I want to increase my upper body strength is to improve my cricket, especially adding more power to my batting. My fitness level is good enough, my legs are strong enough, I just need more strength in my arms/shoulders to be able to hit harder and bowl and throw faster.
 
Also, nutrition and rest make a big difference. Don't drink as much (especially the day of a workout or the next day), get your 8 hours, and have protein and vegetables, with less sugar than you used to.
Actully you should drink more water. Protein and vegetables will go a long way.:cool:
 
I can do 25-30 pushups and I'm scrawny. Or maybe that helps, less weight.
 
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