This is the upper body workout that I used for the last 365 days. And it transformed my physique. It took my back from looking like this to this and my chest and shoulders from looking like this to this.
And even after 15 years of natural training, I still managed to gain 2. 7 lbs of lean mass measured by DEXA. And I even added some extra peak to my biceps measured by ultrasound.
And in this video, I'll show you the exact exercises and technique cues that made the biggest difference for me this year. Let's get into it. I think this was hands down the most effective exercise for growing my pecs this year.
The incline barbell bench press. It mostly targets the chest and front delts with some bonus triceps and even side delt activation since the side delts help stabilize the bar from drifting forward or backward. I picked the incline barbell press over the incline dumbbell press because of the barbell's overload potential.
I ran this program for a full year, and while dumbbells are great, once you get pretty strong, they become big, bulky, and awkward. But you can always add a little weight to the barbell. And while I am a fan of the Smith machine, I went with free weights here to get more out of the stabilizing muscles, especially those side delts.
There's a growing trend of only doing the most stable machine-based version of lifts. But I think that's gone a bit too far. Even for pure hypertrophy, freee compound lifts still have a lot of value.
And research backs this up. An incline barbell bench press clearly grows your chest. In fact, a 45 degree incline press will hit your upper pecs harder while still hitting your mid and lower pecs just as hard as a flat bench.
The study from Chavez and colleagues found that the incline press grew the mid and lower pecs just as well as a flat bench, but the incline press had that added bonus of growing the upper pecs more. The incline press is also very timeefficient because it kills two birds with one stone. you really don't need both a flat press and a vertical press if you just meet in the middle with a 45°ree incline.
Now, the main technique cue that I focused on this year was using a slightly narrower grip to increase the range of motion, and that'll hit a bit more triceps without losing chest tension. And of course, I took the last set to absolute failure every time. I never use a spotter to help me get the weight up.
I wanted to give it my all this year and then just fail on my own accord for scientific consistency. Failing on a heavy compound lift can be a bit intimidating at first, even for experienced lifters. But there's really nothing to be scared of.
Just press until you can't press anymore, and then dump the weight forward onto the safety bars. Now, the most common mistake I see here is bouncing the bar off your chest. Yes, you can lift more weight this way, but remember, progressive overload is when you add a little weight or a rep from week to week, and that only counts if your technique stays consistent.
So, control the descent, do a slight pause on your chest, and then press the weight up and slightly back. Okay, next is where I slow things down a little bit more and put all the tension exactly where I want it, on the pecs. The seated cable fly will also stretch the pecs more than the heavy compound press that we did first.
For these, set a bench pretty far out in front. Grab both handles, hold them tight to your chest, and walk out in front of the bench. As you sit down, you don't want to get pulled backward, so ease yourself into the seat.
Then press the handles forward into the starting position. And from there, begin your first rep with a nice and controlled negative. Try to get as deep as your shoulders will comfortably allow.
And then squeeze the weight forward using your pecs. Try to focus on bringing your elbows together, not just your hands. This will keep tension on your chest and prevent your triceps and front delts from taking over.
From there, sweep the weight out and back in an arc, not just back. So, try to think about covering as much space as possible as you do the negative. Now, I picked these over a pec deck because I do find I can get a bit deeper here than most pec decks allow.
And I do them seated over standing because if you're seated, you'll be a bit more stable, which means no tension coming from the weight stack is being lost to my ankles or my low back, which will have to do some stabilization when I'm standing. Remember, our goal here is pure pectoral isolation. Now, the most common mistake I see here is letting your elbows drop.
This puts your pecs at a mechanical disadvantage and worsens the line of pull for the pec fibers. So, keep your elbows up and think about hugging a big tree as you fly forward. Then, sweep the weight out in a wide arc on the negative.
And again, last set to failure. No exceptions. I think the biggest gains I made this year were in my back.
And I owe a lot of that to one exercise, weighted pull-ups. I know I infamously put these in A tier instead of S tier last year, but after this 365day experiment, I'm officially promoting pull-ups to S tier. Pull-ups light up your entire back.
Your lats handle the shoulder extension. Your mid traps and romboids will light up during scapular retraction. And your low back will engage for stabilization.
Your biceps and brachiialis will take care of elbow flexion. And there's also going to be some muscle activation in your core since you aren't seated like in a lat pull down. Now, I went with a pull-up over a lat pull down mainly because I think they're harder and I didn't want to shy away from the more challenging exercises this year.
I'm also focusing a lot on progressive overload for this experiment. And I find that with lat pull downs, once you get strong enough, it just becomes near impossible to avoid swinging back and forth. However, with pull-ups, you are more limited in how much you can swing and sway, especially once you get some weight strapped to you, and especially if you do a pause in the bottom of each rep.
I'm not saying pull-ups are better than pull downs. They each have their strengths. But yes, I attribute most of my back growth this year to doing a lot of weighted pull-ups.
Two simple technique cues. Think about getting your chest to the bar rather than just getting your chin over the bar. This will help you stay in control of the movement better.
And then, this may sound obvious, but as you pull, you want to think about pulling with your back rather than with your arms. Your arms are just connectors. So, instead of pulling with your arms, think about driving your elbows down and in.
This will activate your lats and prevent your biceps from taking over. I also use both liquid chalk and straps on these so my grip doesn't limit my back gains. And for the experiment, I use this grip in between a fully pronated wide grip and a neutral grip.
I just find it a little more comfortable on my shoulders, but they all work. A very common mistake here is, oddly enough, when people worry too much about feeling their lats. Pull-ups aren't a feely exercise.
They're not really supposed to feel amazing. They're supposed to get you jacked and strong. So, pull yourself up and then lower yourself back down under control.
Increase the weight you're pulling over time. And if you do that, your lats are going to grow whether you feel them or not. So, when I started this experiment, I did 30 lb for six reps on day one.
And now I just did 60 lb for six reps. And that's just straight progressive overload. Pretty happy with that.
And yes, that was my last set. So, taken to failure as always. If you can't do weighted pull-ups yet, no problem.
Just start with assisted pull-ups. You can use a band or a machine and gradually reduce the assistance. Eccentric only pull-ups are also a great progression tool.
Just use a box so you can start at the top of the range of motion and then lower yourself down slowly and repeat. My side delts also definitely improved throughout the course of this experiment and I attribute most of that to this exercise right here. High cable lateral raises.
Just two or three sets of 8 to 10 reps, but I push those sets hard. When done right, these almost exclusively target the side delts, which are arguably the most important muscle fibers for creating that wide tapered X-frame look. And I use cables here because they provide consistent tension throughout the range of motion, unlike dumbbells where there's no tension at the bottom and peak tension only kicks in at the very top.
Also, by setting the cable higher, you'll make the movement hardest when your delts are most stretched. Yeah, I do think the importance of the stretch was slightly exaggerated on social media for a while, but it's still true that with cables, peak tension always occurs when there's a 90° angle between your arm and the cable. And that happens early in the range of motion when the pulley is set high.
Now, a study published just this past December compared cable lateral raises to dumbbell lateral raises. The study we've all been waiting for. At least I was.
Each subject trained one arm with cables and the other arm with dumbbells twice a week, five sets per session, all sets to failure. After 8 weeks of training, they found that both exercises grew the side delts about the same. So, if you don't have access to cables, the good news is dumbbells still get the job done.
That said, this study didn't have their subjects perform cable lateral raises quite the way I do them. They stopped the range of motion directly at their side, which I'd argue means they were missing out on one of the main potential benefits of using a cable, which is that extra range of motion you get by sweeping the weight across your body. Still, based on this new data, I doubt cables versus dumbbells is a true game changer.
What matters most is choosing a variation where you can feel your side delts working and pushing that variation hard with good form. I still use both cables on my upper body day and dumbbells on my push day. And of course, last set goes to failure.
Now, by far the most common lateral raise mistake is shrugging the weight up. This will cause your upper traps to take over and rob your side delts of tension. Instead, focus on sweeping the weight out rather than lifting it up.
If you're struggling to get a feel for this, stand up against a wall and push your arm out sideways against the back of your forearm. Apply pressure gradually against the wall and you should feel your side delts really turn on. That's the exact intention you should be using on your lateral raises.
Think out, not up. This next exercise will activate every single muscle fiber in your entire back from your neck down to your hips. It's the deficit penlay row.
And if you're not doing it, I genuinely think you're missing out. You get amazing mid trap engagement from the scapular retraction, high levels of upper and lower trap activation from scapular stabilization, solid lat activation from shoulder extension, and your spinal erectors will light up since they have to fire isometrically throughout the entire set to keep you locked in that horizontal position. By standing on a bumper plate, you'll increase the range of motion, giving your lats a deeper stretch at the bottom than a traditional floor level row.
I also tweaked the execution for hypertrophy. Instead of the typical explosive up drop down style, I keep the explosive positive but slow down the negative to maintain eccentric tension and control. Then on the last set, I push beyond failure by using lengthen partials.
Yes, I still do these on some exercises. So when I can't get that full squeeze at the top, I still grind out another three or four reps in the stretch position where the lats are the strongest. I know some of you are sick of lengthen partials, but this is a spot where they really make sense, especially given the lat strength curve.
Now, the biggest mistake here is just not getting fully horizontal. Being more upright isn't necessarily wrong, but when your torso is parallel to the floor, gravity is pulling directly against your scapular retractors. This forces your mid traps and romboids to work much harder.
The only way to make a traditional higher torso angle row hit the same is by compensating with more weight. But pound-for-pound, penlay rows are simply more challenging, so I didn't shy away from them this year. Also, make sure you use straps or at the very least chalk.
If you're letting grip hold you back here, you're definitely leaving back gains on the table. Last set to failure. For triceps, I'm using what current research shows is likely the single most effective movement, not just for the long head, but for all three heads, the cable overhead triceps extension.
This study compared overhead extensions to push downs and found that overhead extensions caused 50% more growth in the long head, 40% more growth in the lateral and medial heads, and 40% more growth in the triceps overall. It's a killer. If I only have time for one triceps exercise, this is the one.
Now, the most common mistake here actually happens before the set even starts during the setup. Most people set the cable way too low, then waste a bunch of energy trying to spin and twist themselves into position. Instead, just move the cable up higher, squat underneath it, and use your legs to lift the weight up into place.
Then, take a step or two forward, and you're ready to go. No wasted energy. Failure.
All right, biceps. This part's super cool because a few new studies on biceps growth just dropped. And wouldn't you know it, there's even one comparing my personal favorite, the Beijian cable curl, to the classic preacher curl.
The results? Well, there were non-significant trends favoring the Beijing curl, but nothing statistically significant. That could be because the study was underpowered.
It only had 15 subjects and it ran for just 10 weeks. Or it could mean that both exercises grow your biceps equally well. Regardless, on my upper body day, I've been doing Beijian curls because based on the totality of the evidence, I still suspect they have a slight edge, especially thanks to that deadly combo of long muscle length and high tension in that lengthen position.
Failure. But to be sure, on my pull day, where I train biceps again, I do preacher curls and hammer curls. Failure.
Failure. Now, if you want my full upper lower pushpull legs program, it's available now at jeffnnipper. com.
I'll link it down below and I'll also put a discount code in the description box just for YouTube so you can save 25%. Also, thanks for all the love on the last video. My brother and I went through the comments and we were blown away by all the support and love.
We both really, really appreciate it. We've also both started experiment number two, so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. All right, thanks for watching, guys.
