20 Minute Upper Body Workout

Great Pec Workouts and A Lot More

A 20 minute upper body workout boot camp style involves a lot of different bodyweight exercises and calisthenics.  When thinking about upper body workouts, it is easy to organize your thoughts in terms of push exercises and pull exercises.  Push exercises generally work your chest, shoulders, and triceps muscles.  Pull exercises will generally hit your back (lats) and your biceps.  In addition to those, you can also blend in some stability and dynamic exercises.

The undisputed heavyweight champion of all push exercises is the pushup.  It is great for the chest shoulders, triceps, and even core muscles. 

There are endless variations to make the exercise easier and harder.  And you don’t need anything at all to do them except a little space.  

Now drop and give me 20.

Speaking of the simple pushup, here is a 20 minute workout you can start doing right now.  Do 15 pushups every minute for 20 minutes.  Find the time to do this a few times a week and see what happens - especially if you are just starting out.

When that gets too easy, how much imagination does it take to raise the bar?  More pushups, staggered pushups, elevate your feet…  Did I mention just do more pushups?

Here are a few 20 minute upper body workouts for when you want a little more variety – and maybe want to work a few different muscles.

Workout 1:

3 Sets:

• Pushups until failure.  And I mean failure.  I’ve said it before that there is no shame in doing 10 more knee pushups or half pushups when you start burning out.  Those last few make all the difference.
• Rest 1 minute.
• Pull ups until failure. 
• Rest 1 minute.
• Plank-Deltoid exercise – 10 to 15 reps per arm.
• Rest 1 minute.
  

Workout 2:

4 Sets:

• 5 Staggered pushups with the right arm forward.
• 5 Staggered pushups with the left arm forward.
• 5 Pushups with the right leg lifted
• 5 Pushups with the left leg lifted
• Rest 30 Seconds
• 5 Diamond pushups
• 5 Pike pushups
• Rest 30 Seconds
• 10 Chin ups
• Rest 1 minute
  

Workout 3:

3 Sets:

• 20 Mountain Climbers
• 15 Bench Dips
• Air Box – 30 seconds per side.
• Rest 1 minute.
• 20 Alternating plank pushups
• 10 Pull ups or inverted rows
• Rest 1 minute.
  

These 20 minute upper body workouts are designed to flow and be fairly easy to remember.  A lot of my favorites only consist of a few exercises.  Then again, sometimes a little variety is nice. 

Make sure to check out the modifiers for these exercises on the individual exercise pages.  As your body gets used to these exercises and workouts, you really need to change things up a little bit, make the exercises more challenging, and keep those muscles confused.