When trying to strength train your upper body, designate one day a week for every major upper-body muscle group. For example, on Monday, train your chest, on Tuesday, train your arms, strengthen your shoulders on Wednesday and work your back on Thursday. Or, you may choose to strength train your upper body Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Customize your four-part, upper-body workout to whichever days of the week work best for you.
Day One
The first day of your upper body workout, train your chest. Perform a chest exercise of your choice and perform a low-weight set of 15 to 20 repetitions to get the blood flowing to this area and get your muscles ready for strength training. Begin your chest routine with a classic bench press, then move on to inclined dumbbell flyes. Perform declined chest presses and flat dumbbell flyes. If you have access to a pec deck, perform pec deck flyes. Finish with traditional pushups to work your chest, arms and shoulders. Complete three sets of eight to 10 repetitions of each chest exercise.
Day Two
The second day of the week that you train your upper body, try concentrating on strengthening your biceps and triceps. Perform a high-rep, low-weight arm exercise set to prepare your arms for your workout. Begin with barbell curls and triceps kickbacks. Then move to hammer curls and triceps pushdowns. Finish your arm workout with preacher curls and triceps extensions. Try implementing your arm workout with free weights to use secondary arm muscles for stability and control. Complete three sets of 10 repetitions of each exercise.
Day Three
Work your shoulders on day three of upper-body strength training. Many shoulder exercises may be performed with a barbell or dumbbells. Begin with military presses and dumbbell lateral raises. Move on to lying rear lat raises in which you lie on your stomach on an inclined weight bench. Perform standing dumbbell front raises and inclined dumbbell front raises. Complete three sets of eight to 10 repetitions of each shoulder exercise.
Day Four
Proper form is especially important when training your back because when you execute many back exercises, you may lose sight of your arms and hands. Because of this, you may wish to perform back strength training with training machines when possible to help you properly execute movements. On day four, begin with T-bar chest pulldowns and close-grip T-bar rows. With dumbbells, carefully perform lying behind-head lifts on a weight bench and bent-over rows. Perform three sets of 10 repetitions of each back exercise.
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