Upper body strength

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horsewhisper91
horsewhisper91 Posts: 456 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm having trouble in this section now since I no longer work on farms. I ride still, somewhat....my butt is usually not in the saddle since I vault now. Vaulting is what some may call trick riding, but we do more gymnastics and dance than just out right stunts.

So my question is what is the best exercises for upper body workouts? I can't do pull-ups at this point since my strength level is way low. Push ups I've been working on. But I'm having trouble performing my handstands and flips.

Would I be better of joining a gymnastics gym for this type of training?

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  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
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    I'm having trouble in this section now since I no longer work on farms. I ride still, somewhat....my butt is usually not in the saddle since I vault now. Vaulting is what some may call trick riding, but we do more gymnastics and dance than just out right stunts.

    So my question is what is the best exercises for upper body workouts? I can't do pull-ups at this point since my strength level is way low. Push ups I've been working on. But I'm having trouble performing my handstands and flips.

    Would I be better of joining a gymnastics gym for this type of training?

    So you're still riding a horse while you're doing this kind of gymnastics? If so, then you're probably using a lot of upper back to hold yourself on the horse. How else do your upper body muscles get involved?
  • icrushit
    icrushit Posts: 773 Member
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    I'm doing bodyweight exercises, and there are some great sources of info out there, providing less taxing exercises to start with, while you progress gradually towards very advanced ones.

    I would say a combination of pushing exercies (pushups & all its forms) and pulling exercises (pullups and all its precursors leading up to a pullup, and even beyond eventually to a one handed pullup!), should do the trick for you.

    I've always had a little muscle from spells of resistance training over the years, but I'm finding nothing as effective personally, as the fruits from the bodyweight exercises I've begun doing for the last 10 days or so.

    Places like startbodyweight.com is a good place to start, and there's lots of great information out there, paid and unpaid, depending on how much you want to invest in it (time & money) :)

    Seeing as you seem to have experience of more advanced gymnastic motions, you might enjoy something like Convict Conditioning, although for general upper body strength there's no reason why you can't get everything you need out of excellent upper body compound exercises like pushups and pullups alone :)
  • kessler4130
    kessler4130 Posts: 150 Member
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    For weight training most would recommend a balanced routine, I prefer to focus on compound movements first in all of my routines as they are very good core movements and strengthen several areas (i.e. Back day - Dead Lifts, Chest Day - Bench Press, Shoulder Day - Standing Overhead Press, Leg Day - Squats and Romanian Dead Lifts). If your concern is more of strengthening your body for a pull up type of motion, Deadlifts, Barbell Rows, and Lat pull downs would do you well.

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