
Build upper body strength and toned arms with this 10-Minute Upper Body Workout for Women! This workout routine consists of the 5 best upper body exercises for women, targeting the back, biceps, shoulders, triceps, and chest.
Build a strong upper body at home with this 10-minute dumbbell workout.
An upper body strength workout for women that targets every muscle in the upper body! Get strong, toned arms with these 5 upper body strength training exercises.
You don’t need fancy gym equipment or exercises like dumbbell bench presses and chin-ups to build strong arms — there are plenty of upper body workouts you can do at home with just a set of dumbbells.
The upper body is made up of several large muscles, including the: pull muscles (back and biceps) and the push muscles (chest, shoulders and triceps).
A strong upper body helps improve posture, makes everyday tasks easier, and can give your other workouts a boost! The chest and back are some of your largest muscle groups. HIIT workouts and circuit training often involve these large muscle groups, so keeping them strong will make your other workouts better, too!
The best upper body exercises for women are compound movements that target multiple muscle groups at once. For example, upper body weight training routines for women should include both ‘push’ exercises (targeting the chest, shoulders and triceps) and ‘pull’ exercises (targeting the back and biceps).
I would pair this 10-minute upper body workout for women with this 15-Minute HIIT Cardio Workout for a major calorie burn! Or I would add these 5 upper body exercises onto one of these upper body workouts as an ‘arm burnout’. I also recommend cooling down with this stretch routine: The 8 Best Upper Body Stretches.
The goal is to build upper body strength and toned arms using a set of dumbbells to complete these five upper body exercises.
We’re going to fatigue the upper body muscles in a repetition drop format. A rep-drop format means that you decrease the number of reps per exercise each set.
Each upper body exercise is designed to target a specific muscle group — back, biceps, chest, shoulders and triceps.
Medium-to-heavy set of dumbbells. I’m using a set of 10 lb dumbbells in this workout video, but if I were doing this upper body workout at home I would push for 15-20 lb dumbbells.
The goal is to complete this rep-drop workout using the same set of dumbbells the entire time. That said, you can always start with a heavier set of dumbbells and drop down to a lighter set of dumbbells as your upper body fatigues.
Follow along with the guided Upper Body Workout video on YouTube, led by certified personal trainer, Lindsey Bomgren.
Or you can work off the five best upper body exercises below at your own pace. Note, this video does not include a warm up but here’s a great upper body warm up routine.
Your Workout Looks Like This:
Targets: The long (outer) and short (inner) heads of the bicep muscles (upper arms).
The best bicep exercises to make the bicep muscles pop.
Modification: If you feel yourself using momentum rather than your arm muscles to lift and lower the weights (using your body to swing the weights), use lighter weights or alternate arms rather than curling both arms at once.
Targets: All three heads of the deltoids, also known as your shoulder muscles.
The overhead press builds defined shoulders and improves posture.
Modification: If you feel yourself arching your back to press the dumbbells overhead, use lighter weights or alternate arms by first pressing dumbbell in the right overhead, and then the left hand.
Targets: The triceps or back of your arm.
Skull crushers tighten and tone the back of the arm.
Modification: If you only have heavy dumbbells, you can drop from two dumbbells down to one dumbbell to perform this exercise (holding the dumbbell horizontally with one head in each hand).
Targets: Chest, shoulders, triceps, back, abs and core muscles.
Push ups are one of the most effective ways to strengthen your entire upper body using just your bodyweight.
Modification: Substitute incline push ups by placing your hands on a chair or bench; or drop to your knees for modified push ups.
Targets: Both the lower back and upper back, specifically the lats and rhomboids.
This compound exercise also strengthens the biceps as they are also engaged in the “pull” motion.
Modification: Perform this bilateral exercise as a unilateral exercise, by focusing the row on one side of the body. Use one dumbbell to perform a single arm row.
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Best way to finish a run! Thanks for providing such amazing workouts!
Agreed! I love adding this onto a run too! Nice work Allison and I hope you come back for more workouts! -Lindsey
Fantastic workout! I love your enthusiasm, you push us to the max 🙂 I managed to do it all with my 12 lbs. dumbbells, next time I’ll try 15 lbs. Thanks so much, Lindsey!
Way to go Liz! And I love your enthusiasm for increasing weights! NICE WORK! -Lindsey
You are amazing!! Your workouts are awesome and you are so eager to share! I’m grateful to have stumbled across your Instagram profile, I will be sweating and growing muscle with the aid of your videos, so thank you so much!!
Hi Amy! I’m so glad you stumbled across my account on Instagram too! Keep up the great work and I look forward to sweating with you! – Lindsey
Excellent workout, great for a rainy day. TX!
Thanks Ruben! So glad you love this workout as much as I do! Enjoy! -Lindsey
Hi, love this…can you make a 5 best lower body with same format as well as 5 best core. This is so simplistic and easy to follow. Question; do you perform exercise 1 for 12,10,8,6,4 count back to back then move to exercise 2 or is this done more in circuit style 12 of each then 10 of each, etc
Hi Rosa! I’m so sorry I’m just seeing your message now. So happy you love this workout and thank you for the feedback about doing this for Lower Body + Core as well. I thought you might enjoy these posts too:
7 Best Strength Training Exercises for Women {Total Body} — https://www.nourishmovelove.com/7-best-strength-training-exercises-for-women/
6 Best Booty Building Exercises for Women — https://www.nourishmovelove.com/6-best-booty-building-exercises-women/
6 Exercises to Tone Your Abs + Butt + Thighs — https://www.nourishmovelove.com/6-exercises-to-tone-your-abs-butt-thighs/
7 Core Exercises — https://www.nourishmovelove.com/super-7-core-workout/
As for this workout perform 12 reps of exercises 1 through 5, then 10 reps of exercises 1 through 5…and so on!
Thanks again for checking out this workout! -Lindsey
Just did this workout at home and it was great!
Need to get my arms toned for summer 2019.
Xo,
Amy R.