30 Upper Body Exercises, By Muscle Group
Stuck in a workout rut or unsure how to target your upper body effectively? Here are 30 proven upper-body exercises grouped by muscle so you can build a session around whatever you’re missing – chest, back, shoulders, biceps or triceps.
Struggling to put together a workout? No problem. Pick 5-6 exercises across at least two muscle groups, do three sets of each, and you’ve got a solid all-round upper-body session that’s easy to follow and delivers results.
Chest
- Barbell bench press – the benchmark chest builder, elbows at roughly 45 degrees to your torso
- Incline dumbbell press – shifts emphasis to the upper chest
- Push-ups – no equipment needed, scalable with tempo or added weight
- Dumbbell flyes – isolates the chest through a long stretch
- Cable crossover – constant tension through the full range
- Dips – lean forward to bias chest over triceps
Back
- Pull-ups – the standard for back width
- Bent-over barbell row – builds thickness through the mid-back
- Lat pulldown – a pull-up regression that still targets the lats directly
- Seated cable row – horizontal pulling for the mid-back and rear delts
- Single-arm dumbbell row – fixes side-to-side imbalances
- Deadlift – loads the entire posterior chain, back included
Shoulders
- Overhead press – the main shoulder-building lift
- Dumbbell lateral raise – targets the side delt for width
- Front raise – isolates the front delt
- Face pulls – rear delts and shoulder health, easy to under-do
- Arnold press – the rotation hits the delt from more angles
- Upright row – traps and side delts together
Biceps
- Barbell curl – the classic mass builder
- Dumbbell hammer curl – hits the brachialis for arm thickness
- Preacher curl – removes momentum, forces strict form
- Concentration curl – peak contraction, one arm at a time
- Cable curl – constant tension through the whole rep
- Chin-ups – an underrated compound biceps builder
Triceps
- Close-grip bench press – heavy compound triceps work
- Tricep dips – upright torso to bias triceps over chest
- Overhead tricep extension – stretches the long head under load
- Skull crushers – isolation with a heavier load than most triceps moves allow
- Cable pushdown – simple, joint-friendly triceps finisher
- Diamond push-ups – a bodyweight triceps-bias push-up variation
How to Build a Session From This List
Don’t try to do all 30 in one workout. Pick one or two exercises per muscle group per session, and rotate which ones you use every few weeks to keep progressing. If chest is your priority, our 9 best chest exercises for men goes deeper on sets, reps and form for that muscle specifically. Training the rest of your body on other days? See our full leg day workout to round out the week.
