Upper Body 500 Workout

Here is a workout which should take about 30-40 minutes depending on if you take breaks between rounds/exercises with a focus on the upper body.

Saturdays are a special day because I get up early, do a hard boxing/kickboxing workout, and then feel great the rest of the day. For the last few weeks I have not done this due to a knee injury but rather did some sort of Peloton bike workout which is also hard/rewarding. This past weekend I could not do either of my options and went to bed Friday evening feeling down/bad for myself. I woke up Saturday and changed the way I thought about my injury and quickly came up with this workout. Sometimes – you cannot wait for an opportunity but rather have to make the opportunity.

This workout focuses on five moves:

1. Rows
2. Presses
3. Snatches (50 each arm)
4. Skull Crushers
5. Lateral/Front Raises (50 lateral/50 front raise)

There are two ways go to through this workout – either do 100 of the first exercise, move to the second, do 100 reps of that, and move down the list. The second option is to go through 20 of each exercise 5x. I have done this both ways. If you decide to do this with a partner – do the later and while you are doing the strength exercise, have your partner do a core move for the time it takes you to do the 20 reps, then immediately switch off so you go between core and strength. Try it for speed too.

While this was initially not my first option for my Saturday workout – it was equally fulfilling and I am looking forward to go through it again in the upcoming weeks. For a reference:

Rows – with a 45lbs sandbag
Presses – alternating wide/narrow grip with 30lbs bar, sea saw presses with 12.5lbs dumbbells.
Snatches – 26lb kettlebell
Skull crushers (12.5lb dumbbells in each hand)
Lateral/Front Raises – 8lbs dumbbells

Next time things are not going your way – shift your focus on something you can control vs. focusing on what you cannot control. You will feel better and thank yourself later.