50 Upper Body Exercises Part 1

Competition, nothing gets my juices going like it! That is why when I received an email yesterday challenging me I couldn't wait to get going.

Michael C. from New Jersey (of course a good East Coast boy would write me a good challenge) wrote me: "Josh, I know you really are into the sandbags, but they don't seem that good for building the upper body. There aren't THAT many exercises you can perform with them."

Wow! My wheels just started turning in all the ways that sandbags can be used to perform all types of unique upper body exercises. So Michael inspired me to take on a personal challenge. I wanted to show all of you 50 upper body exercises you could do with the Ultimate Sandbag.

Maybe Michael was right, with a homemade or knockoff sandbag you can't do all that much training. However, with our Ultimate Sandbag and our new Ultimate Core Strap there is soooo much that can be done.

What makes sandbags such a great upper body training tool?

1. Change where you grab the sandbag or the position of the Ultimate Sandbag and you change the loading of the weight. Just see how different grabbing the ends is versus the handles, or doing a standard press is to a shoulder to shoulder.

2. We can manipulate leverage to create greater perceived loads. Try performing a press from a lunge position or just staggered stance. The load of the Ultimate Sandbag seems so much greater.

3. The Ultimate Core Strap allows for bands, cables, and leverage all to be used to create very unique upper body exercises that simply are not possible with other training implements.

Choose a pressing and pulling exercise every time you train and you will have great upper body development. Secondly, add in two isolation exercises if you want to build up some weak points, this is the same method the famous powerlifters at Westside Barbell use too! See all week what 50 upper body drills I suggest!