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Don't Forget To Do Your Upper Body Exercises

Upper Body Exercises are really important especially for runners.

Give Your Fitness A Boost!

Upper body exercises will help you become a stronger runner. Your goal is not to become a bodybuilder, but a little strength can go a long way to give your fitness a boost.

If you are in the process of trying to lose weight by running than it will speed up the process as the added muscle burns more calories at rest.

This page is about upper body exercises specifically and their will be links from this page to more specific exercise pages with video to help you with your form if you need that extra assistance.

Bookmark this page now, so that you can come back often and see our updates!

The Muscle Groups We are going To Focus On For The Upper Body Are

Chest

Back

Shoulders

Let's Start With Upper Body Exercises For The Chest

Why should you do upper body exerices for running?

We are only as strong as our weakest link, right? So it makes sense to strengthen everything.

It would seem like you only need to have strong legs to run well, but this isn't so. The entire body is involved when you run, jog or even walk.

Being in touch with your entire musculature is a big plus to any sports endeavor. Weight training will certainly get you in touch with all of your muscles. Sometimes muscles you didn't know you had.

So let's get started with the chest: Keep it simple at first and use lighter weights versus heavy in the beginning. If you have never weight trained before or are unsure how, find a trainer to help you get started.

You can watch our videos. They will help you with executing the proper form. The video below is an example of the dumbell press for the chest muscles.

In the video we show you how to do a dumbbell chest press. If you do not have a bench than you can lay on the floor. Watch the video for some advice on how to execute the exercise.

Their are many variations to this exercise such as...

using a barbell instead of dumbbells.

using an exercise ball instead of a bench

pushups-wall pushups, modified pushups, and military pushups

decline bench presses-with dumbbells or a bar

incline bench presses-with dumbbells or a bar

chest flyes

Just to mention a few...

Upper Body Exercises For The Back

In the back exercise video we show you an example of a back row using one arm at a time.

This can also be done without the use of a bench and using two arms at once. *It is not recommended to try the double arm row without a trainer or experienced weight lifter to help.

This particular exercise takes some practicing in order to feel the muscle groups that you are trying to build. Please watch and listen to the video as we explain exactly how to perform it.

Here are some variations of back exercises:

the pulldown (you will find this at most fitness centers) or you may be lucky enough to have one at home if you own a home gym.

bent over row (this one can be done with a bar or dumbells.)

old fashioned pullups

-make sure you build up some sterngth before attempting these.

t-bar row(again most gyms have these.)

Again these are just a few of the many varieties of back exercises.

Upper Body Exercises For The Shoulders

In the video we show you how to do a shoulder press. Please watch the video carefully. The shoulders are a delicate joint and tend to get injured the most often. A lot of that has to do with poor form and lifting too heavy too soon.So start with light weights and be careful.

Some variety:

lateral raises

side raises

rear delt raises

shoulder press machines at the gym

We recommend following all eight of the videos if you are new to weight training.

We have the chest, back and shoulders videos on this page and the legs biceps triceps on another page (currently building this page)

And the abdominal exercise video on the core exercise page. Go to stretching exercise page for a cool down stretch.

Back to Strength Training for Runners

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