The very first thing that you can do to boost your upper body sessions is to superset together bicep exercises with tricep movements. This pairing works well because the muscles are antagonistic to each other, so while one’s working, the other can be resting.

If you want to get a massive arm pump going, this is the way to do it.

Good sample pairings to consider with these exercises include bicep curls with tricep extensions, hammer curls with tricep press downs, or close grip pull-ups with triangle push-ups, which would be a more compound superset in nature.

All will challenge those arm muscles far more than straight sets would.

Second, the next way that you can boost the intensity of your upper body workout is to consider a drop set. A drop set is where you’re going to perform one full outset as you normally would, but then as soon as you reach a point of fatigue, you’ll drop the weight by about five pounds and then continue on with a second set immediately afterward.

Once you’re finished with that set, drop the weight one more time and try and perform a third and final set, doing as many reps as you can do.

Take note that this is a much more intense protocol than a regular straight set, so you will typically just do one per workout, per exercise.

Some people may add in a few drops set exercises, but you should only do so after you’ve spent some time getting used to the nature of it first.

It’s highly demanding on the body and doing too many of these will quickly cause overtraining to set in.

Moving along, the next great technique that we need to discuss that will help you challenge your upper body workouts to a higher level is to change your grip position. Sometimes all it takes is just a simple shift to notice a big difference in the overall stress of an exercise, and that change is what brings about great results.

Good exercises to consider a grip change on including the bench press, the bent over row, the lat pull down, as well as the pull-up.

With the bench press, going from a wide grip to a close grip is going to place far more emphasis on the tricep muscles, while still targeting the chest. Or, if you flip the hands around and use an overhand grip, you’ll feel it more in both the biceps as well as the triceps.

Alternatively, with the barbell row, you can use a reverse grip here and challenge the bicep muscles more thoroughly than normal, or you can move the arms closer together and really feel it in your mid-back.

With the lat pulldown, moving the hands closer shifts the focus to mid back rather than the lats or reverse the grip will make it more a bicep predominant exercise.

Finally, with the pull-up, you have the option of a reverse grip, which hits the biceps more, a wide grip, which challenges the lats more, or you can use a staggered grip which hits all areas of the upper body quite well. If using that grip, just be sure to do it to both sides since your hand positions will be different in each set.

The next way that you can stimulate the body to a higher degree is to use cables. While you can still perform many of the same exercises using cables, the great thing is that they add a much different effect to your workouts compared to using free weights.

They’ll maintain a more constant level of tension throughout the entire exercise you’re doing, so this can help to take your strength level up a notch.

Substituted in for free weights every now and then, this is a terrific option.

Push-ups on an exercise ball are the next way to take your upper body workouts up a notch and really work the core at the same time. This is a highly advanced movement though, so just be sure that you are entirely comfortable performing a standard push-up first before attempting it.

Push-ups on the exercise ball are going to demand maximum levels of stabilization in the body, so are going to really work every single muscle deep into the core and the upper body.

Finally, last but not least, another way to kick your upper body workout up a notch is to go for timed reps rather than doing sets.

Make it a mission to perform as many reps of an exercise in one minute straight. If you have to stop and rest at any point, so be it, but pick back up as soon as you can again immediately afterward.

So there you have some of the top ways that you can boost your performance during your upper body workouts and take your fitness up a level. Incorporate one or two of these strategies in at a time, cycling through them as you go about your workout program.