If strengthening your upper body is one of your fitness goals this year, then you need workouts that effectively target a wide range of muscle groups. Your back, chest, arms and shoulders all need to be strengthened, ideally using moves that also work your abs and deep core muscles.
This 20-minute workout looks complicated at the outset, but that’s because it’s been carefully designed to work all of the major muscles in your upper body, and once you get into the swing of it you’ll find it’s easy to follow thanks to the clear instructions of fitness trainer Lindsey Bomgren, founder of Nourish Move Love.
All you really need for the workout is a set of dumbbells, or some of the best adjustable dumbbells if you have them so you can vary the weight you use, but if you also have a yoga mat, bench and pull-up bar you can put all of those to good use as well. If you don’t have a pull-up bar don’t worry, there’s an alternative exercise you can do just with dumbbells.
In fact, throughout the workout an easier alternative move is offered for each exercise, with trainer Rachel showing you that while Lindsey demonstrates the main exercise, so whatever your fitness level you can give this 20-minute session a go to boost your upper body strength.
Watch Nourish Move Love’s 20-minute dumbbell workout
The workout is part of Nourish Move Love’s New Year’s Challenge, but you can do it as a standalone session if you don’t fancy taking on the daily workout series. It’s described as an arms session, but it actually targets the whole upper body, with three circuits that primarily focus on the back, shoulders and chest in turn.
In each circuit you do two sets of three exercises, performing the trio as a superset with short rests between them. The three moves each target a different goal — one focuses on your stability, one on strength and one on power.
The variety of compound exercises you do as part of these circuits mean that pretty much every muscle in your upper body is worked, increasing your functional strength while also raising your heart rate and boosting your metabolism.
For the stability and power exercises you work for 30 seconds then rest for 15, while you work for 40 seconds with the strength exercises, then again rest for 15 seconds. The session also includes a warm up and cool down and, along with the short intro, the whole video is 26 minutes long. If you really don’t have that to spare the workout itself is time-stamped so you can get through it in just 20 minutes.
The session also includes a warm up and cool down and, along with the short intro, is just 26 minutes long.
Lindsey and Rachel are using 15-25lb dumbbells, but if you quickly scan through the exercises involved before starting you can choose the weight that will suit you best. If you are planning on doing the pull-ups you might also want to use a resistance band to assist you — loop it around the bar and then let it hang down so you can put your foot in it like a stirrup to help raise you up.
What I love about this workout is the variety of moves involved and the fact it doesn’t shy away from being a little more complex than many sessions. While it’s a bit daunting to see a wide range of moves you might not have done before, the instructions are clear and they are all smart picks to help you strengthen a variety of muscles.
If you can do this session once a week you’ll be going a long way to maintaining and improving your upper body strength, but if you’re looking for something a little simpler and shorter, try this six-move dumbbell workout instead.
More from Tom's Guide
- Forget weights — you just need 6 minutes to reduce stiffness and boost your mobility with this equipment-free workout
- You don’t need the gym to build strength, try this 10-minute kettlebell workout instead
- No, not sit-ups — here's the one abs exercise you should do to strengthen your core without weights
