You might think actors have an arsenal of secret weapons to get ridiculously fit: a trainer watching their every move, a private chef forcing healthy food down their throat, a fully stocked home gym.
Sure, those things help. But they don’t truly move the dial. The two things that do are a great workout plan, and a will to work hard. With this program, you have the first requirement: the exact same plan as the stars.
You can’t buy the second prerequisite.
The effort you put into your workouts was, is, and always will be the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if your annual income is 20 million or 20 thousand—no one can do the exercises for you or force you to go the extra mile. If you rise to the occasion, choosing to make each of these 36 workouts a fitness crucible, you have just as good a chance of looking like an action hero as an A-lister.
Dive in, work hard, and make a change. This Ultimate Upper Body workout plan from Men’s Health and celebrity trainer Ben Bruno is the first place to start. Want to learn more? Read on. If you’re already sold, get started with the workout below.
How to Take on the Ultimate Upper Body Workout
Artem Varnitsin / EyeEmGetty Images
If you’re taking on the Ultimate Upper Body program, you’ll do three workouts a week (this is just one of them). Perform the workouts on the days that are most convenient for you. One rule: Avoid doing the workouts three days in a row.
The workout is comprised of three groups of exercises, which are composed of either two exercises (supersets) or three exercises (trisets). For supersets, do each pair of exercises—1A and 1B, for instance—in back-to-back fashion. Perform 1A for the prescribed number of reps, followed immediately by 1B for the prescribed number of reps. Rest for as long as you feel you need. That’s one set, or in this case, one superset. Repeat this procedure until you’ve performed all the prescribed sets of 1A and 1B. Then move on to the next group of exercises.
If there are three exercises in agroup—2A, 2B, and 2C, for instance—that’s a triset. This time, you’ll simplydo all three exercises before resting.Continue in this manner until you’vedone all of the exercises in the workout.
Each exercise includes the number of sets and reps you’ll perform. If you see “per side” after your reps—as in “4 sets of 8 reps per side”—that means you’re to do eight reps for each limb or each side of your body every time you do that exercise. You may also see“AMRAP,” which stands for “as many reps as possible.”
You’ll find that in some cases, you’re to do more sets of one exercise than the others. For example, you may be instructed to do 4 sets of 2A, but only 3 sets of 2B and 2C. Simply do 3 sets of each exercise, but then finish any extra sets of an exercise on its own. So you’d do three sets of 2A, 2B, and 2C in succession, and then finish that group per-forming a fourth set of only 2A.
Phase 1, Workout 1
gilaxiaGetty Images
Exercise 1A.
Low-Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
4 sets of 8 reps
Exercise 1B.
Chest-Supported Dumbbell Row
4 sets of 10 reps
Exercise 2A.
Dumbbell Straight-Leg Deadlift
4 sets of 5 reps
Exercise 2B.
Dumbbell Single-Arm Row
3 sets of 10 reps per side
Exercise 2C.
Hanging Leg Raise
3 sets of 10 reps
Exercise 3A.
Pushup
3 sets of AMRAP
Exercise 3B.
Band Pull-Apart
3 sets of 20 reps
Source: Read Full Article