Upper Body Strength.

[MB]

Okay, I made this thread to give you some of the best excercises for your upper body mucles that I have tried. If you are really looking for the whole body, ripped, great physical overall shape than I would pick up a copy of the Charles Atlas course, which you can get over kazaa if you don't want to pay for it.

Diamond Pushups.

Diamond Pushups where brought to me by a friend who told me they work your tricep like no other excercise. What you do is you get down like you are doing a regular pushups, but instead of putting your hands at shoulder width, make a diamond with your two thumbs and index fingers exactly in the center between youre shoulders. See how many of these you can do, but if you can't do many or even one don't get discouraged just keep trying and you will see results very quickly.

Regular Pushups.

Almost everyone knows how to do pushups, so I'm just going to give you a few pointers that make the difference. Make sure youre body is straight, if your body is curved the pushups won't work as efectivley and you could sustain back injury. DO NOT dip your head down instead of moving your arms all the way. Stay on your toes, and keep your hands at shoulder width unless you want to work different mucles. Remember, also, that if it doesn't hurt your not tearing mucles, which means that your not going to grow any back.

Chest Dips

This one is a doosy, straight from the Charles Atlas course. Take two chairs, and place them about 18 Inches apart. Put your hands on the center of the seat part of the chairs and get your body in the "push up" position. Proceed to dip down between the chairs as far as you can and while you are doing this breath in, when you push youself back up make sure you breath out. You will add an inch to your chest in a week, if my memory serves me right from the course.

Another Tricep Exersice

Okay, this is another tricep excersise that my father showed me. He used to do this when he was in prison, and it helped is Tri's a lot.

You need a coffe table, or something of that nature that won't collapse on you. Move your body so it is facing away from the table, and put your hands on the edge like you are going to flip the table over. Then put all your weight on your hands and move your feet as far out as you can but keep them together on the floor. Continue going up and down on the coffee table (using your hands) as long as you can stand. Or go untill the burning is unbearable, then do ten more.

That is all that I can think of at the moment, but I hope that it helps some of you get larger mucles, as it has helped me. If when you are doing any of these exercises you feel like you are really getting hurt, stop doing them at once. It is also wise to consult a physician beforehand to make sure you're up to the job. I and Rorta.com are not responsible if you get hurt, injured, messed up, F.U.B.A.R'ed, shocked, shaken, or dazzled during the attempt at these exercises and everything you do you are doing at your own free will.

[ZBoxDemon]

What about the one amed pushups where you put one hand behind your back?

[Stone]

Try doing push-ups with just your thumb and fore-finger...

[ZBoxDemon]

Couldn't those be extremely painful and put too much weight on your fingers, leading to them breaking?

[Stone]

Not if you lean on them in a certain way.

[ZBoxDemon]

it sounds like you need to lean them somewhat outward so it spreads the weight over a wider area. Making it more stable on your fingers.

[Stone]

Your fingernail should be paralell to the ground and bend up from the joint nearest to the tip.

[Jimmysmith]

You're only going to be able to get so far with push ups and dips. For better gains, you should try bench pressing, and gradually increase the weight as you are able to. Determine a max lift, and then attempt to complete three sets of 10 repetitions on that weight.

To put more emphasis on your triceps, use a narrow grip, and to put more emphasis on the pectorals, use a wide grip. The same goes for push ups.

Now, you only seem interested in pressing excercises. But this is a thread entitled 'upper body strength', and there is more to that than your pecs, tris, traps and delts. You're leaving out entirely your back and biceps here. Try doing chin ups in sets of 10 at first to work out the back and biceps, and then you may want to branch into lat pull downs.

There is no point in having massive shoulders and lats if your abs are weak. Especially if you are interested in doing excercises such as squats or dead lifts in order to work out the legs. Core strength is very important for the serious athlete. Sit ups can be employed and improved by doing them on an incline. You can also raise your legs up while lying down and holding them at 45 degrees, slowly raising and lowering them as you go.

You can't overlook diet here either. There's no point building a house without any bricks. So you should make sure you have plenty of carbohydrates before a workout and plenty of protein afterwards. Pasta meals and jacket potatoes can make carbos bearable, and as for protein, well, we all like steak, eggs etc now don't we.