Building Muscle Workouts Push / Pull For Upper Body Muscle

Push / Pull Workout for Upper Body Strength

Good Morning,

I've got another great workout from Jim Smith from the Diesel Crew and Accelerated Muscular Development.


Here is a recent push / pull workout I did.

I remember the first publication I read specifically talking about the balance required in a workout. It was Alwyn Cosgrove’s The Professional Fitness Coach Program Design Bible.

He specifically talked about you must balance your pressing movements with your pulling movements. Extension movements should balance flexion movements. Rotation with the reverse movement, and so on… It was the first time it was ever explained so simply.

And yes, it can be simple for you and your programs.

If there isn’t a balance of the volume and load (sets x reps x weight) on all movements, then imbalances occur. And that is when injuries happen.

Simply, look for the balance.


Muscle Building Upper Body Workout example 1:

Bench Press, 4×8, 200 lbs = 32×200 = 6400 lbs lifted with a pushing movement.

Bent Over Rows, 3×10, 150lbs = 30×150 = 4500 lbs lifted with a pulling movement.

OT BALANCED!

The bent over rows should be adjusted for volume or weight.

All you would have to do is, change the sets to 4×10 and increase the weight to 160lbs and it will balance.

Bent Over Rows, 4×10, 160lbs = 40×160 = 6400 lbs lifted with a pulling movement.

NOW IT IS BALANCED!


Or you could do a different technique. You could balance the pressing movement with MULTIPLE pulling movements within the same workout.


Building Upper Body Muscle Example 2

Bench Press (pushing exercise)

Bent Over Rows (pulling exercise 1)

Face Pulls (pulling exercise 2)

Band Retractions (pulling exercise 3)


The goal is to maintain the integrity of the joint, balance the musculature to ensure optimal strength.

Here is the workout I performed with some key tips.



Swiss Bar Bench Press

Key coaching points to remember. Stay tight, chest up and drive the feet down. Try hard not to let the elbows flare outwards. Take a breath at the top and create tension. Hold that tension for the rep. Reset after each rep.

Cage Rope Climbing

This movement is extremely hard on the grip, biceps and back. The rope used in the video is 1.5″ nylon rope and it is anchored to the top bar of the power cage. In the video I also perform a hand over hand kettlebell lift. This movement is easy to setup. Just put the rope over the top of the power cage and anchor to the kettlebell.

Check out my review and more building muscle videos from Jim click Accelerated Muscular Development

To Gain Muscle Fast Time Under Tension For Building Muscle

Time-Under-Tension for Fast Muscle Gain  By Jason Ferruggia

One of the supposed rules of fast muscle gain is that in order for a muscle to grow it has to be exposed to a certain load (e.g. under tension) for 40–70 seconds at a given time. This simply means that every set you do should last somewhere between 40 and 70 seconds.

 If you have never heard this nonsense before, I will give you a second to pick yourself up off the floor and stop laughing. To disprove this theory, I will point to the immeasurable number of lifters who have grown to enormous proportions without ever adhering to this rule.

Taking 40–70 seconds to do a set of 6–8 reps is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. Lifting at this slow speed severely limits the amount of weight you can use and thus decreases the effectiveness of the set.

The only thing that long time-under-tension sets do is increase lactic acid production. This results in the burn feeling and may be what people are confusing with effective training. You can get a great burn by going for a swim or a long bike ride or by doing 1,000 crunches, but everyone knows this isn’t going to do a single thing to help you build muscle.

Fast twitch muscle fibers are the ones that have the greatest potential for building muscle and are only stimulated when the load is heavy, the reps are fairly low and the set lasts about twenty seconds or so.

So sets of five or six reps with 80% or more of your one rep max (1RM) are far more productive at eliciting fast muscle gain than sets of 10-20 reps with 50-60% of your 1RM done at slower speeds. That’s not to say that you should never do slightly higher reps or use less than 80% of your 1RM but that that type of training should never be the main focus of your program.

I hate to admit this, but back when time under tension was first discussed and brought to popularity, I did extensive experiments with this so called muscle building concept in my own private training center. Yes, I got suckered. After reading everything I could about time under tension, I immediately modified every one of my clients’ training programs. We experimented with longer time under tension sets of 40-70 seconds for over a year.

The results? Nearly every single client, to a man, got smaller and weaker. Those that didn’t remained the same size and strength or made marginal muscle gains, at best, that were far inferior to anything we had previously done. I admit it was a huge mistake, but trying things, making mistakes and adapting is the best way to learn.

The good news is that I have already done the experiments and made the mistakes for you. Learn from my misfortunes, avoid these deadly mistakes and you will be on the road to fast muscle gain in no time.

For a more effective approach to gain muscle, click HERE now.

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people gain muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more check out How to Build Muscle Fast tips