Working The Upper Body

Those who are following a regular exercise programwhere they are working out at least three times a week in the form of aerobics must set aside one day toconcentrate on the upper body. Your upper bodyworkout should not last more than half an hour and must include a warm up and a cool down.

Once you are done with your warm up, stand with your legapart and your arms outstretched beside you. Rotate your arms in small circles forward and backward. do this fifteen times forward and fifteen times backwards. Do two sets of these, where one set has the fists pointing upwards, and the next pointing downwards. In thisexercise, you will be working your shoulders.

For the next exercise, stand with your legs apart and keep the knee slightly bent. Raise your hands to shoulder height. bend your elbows and bring your arms towards the chest. Extend them again. Repeat this for fifteen counts. Do not move the upper arm through this exercise.

While you are standing with your arms outstretched, keep the palms facing the ceiling. Gently move the arms up and down in a bobbing motion. Now keep your palms facing backwards, and repeat the same as if you are bobbing backwards. You can do ten sets of eight counts each.

Your next exercise would be the bicep curl. For this, keep the arms stretched out and the legs should also be apart. Clench your fists and bend your elbow and bring the fist upwards. Lower it again to the original position and do this for three sets of eight counts each. You must feel a tightening in your bicep muscles.

Keep your elbow bent at right angles and bring them together in front of your face. Open it out again. You must feel a resistance in your upper arm to make the exercise more effective.

With your legs apart, bend your body slightly forward making sure the elbows are bent. Clench your fists. Push your arms backwards as much as you can and bring them to the starting position again. Do three sets of this, each having twelve counts.