Bulking upper body.

[Drubomb]

Hey guys, so i'm just curious what idea's people have for bulking up. Right now, i'm 16 and 6'3 and 185 lbs and most of it is my legs. Im just having trouble building weight on my upper body and wondering if anyone had some tips. Trying to get big for next years rugby season . Right now i'm trying to keep a steady visit to the local crossfit although i've been injured etc from our recent rugby games and also school workload. I find crossfit to more rip your body than put on the pounds of muscle, i'd consider my upper body strong but it doesn't show at all. Anyway, some friendly advice is always nice

[Radux]

If you really want to bulk up:
- Lower your cardio workouts.
- Carb load. Frequently.
- High weight, low rep (you want muscle failure after ~6-8 reps).
- Muscle confusion: Don't do the same exercises over and over. Your body will adapt and gain less effect over time. Change it up sometimes.
- Don't work one muscle group more than once every 48 hours.
- Protein: Get enough of it. Especially useful in a protein/recovery shake.

Things you could do without weights:
- Tons of various push ups
- Tons of various pull ups / chin ups
- Yoga (bash it if you want, it works)

Things you can do with weights:
- [insert chest exercises like Benching]
- [insert Tricep exercise]
- [insert Bicep exercise like Curls]
- [insert Ab exercise]
- [insert back exercise]


Make sure not to work just one muscle (Curls aren't great, for instance). Do an exercise that works more than one at a time. Spot training doesn't work.


EDIT: Just because you're bulking your upper body during this time doesn't mean you can completely ignore your legs or cardio work. It just means you're lessening your focus on them. Like I mentioned, Spot training doesn't work.

[Drubomb]

Oh, for sure i dont plan on not working legs... I'm just saying just the way I work I don't specifically need to train them, do a ton of running and enough squats and leg work at crossfit but it just didn't appear to get my upper body bigger. And alright thanks for the advice !

[Velky]

This site will answer all your questions:

http://www.scoobysworkshop.com/index.htm

Enjoy!

[lifteez]

the link above is a start, but if you want a real person, ask your schools football coach for the lineman, or any in general. coachs always are willing to help unless there outright jerks, and im sure he'll ask u to stop by another time when hes free and hell help u, bring a pen and paper to write it down!

[Drunkenfinn]

Eat some Creatine and loads of high-protein food.
High-weight and Low-rep.

Did I say Creatine allready? It's frigging amazing, trust me.

Not only for upper body, but IMO the best move for building overall strength for sports such as Hockey, American Football and Rugby:
The Power Clean (example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wYAo...eature=related)

If you havent done it before I suggest you get your coach or someone else knowledgeable to teach you the right technique. If you try doing it without the right technique you cant lift anything heavy and will end up breaking yourself.
Once you get it right and build up some strength you can easily lift 1.5x your own bodyweight.

For a sport such as yours you should focus on:
- Shoulders
- Abs
- Back
- Neck
- Chest to some extent

You should ofc train your whole upper body, but those are the most "important" ones for a sport such as Rugby.

Also, when doing reps, remember to do them in a "fast" and explosive manner so you end up building the right kind of muscle-tissue. You want to be big and fast, not really big and slow.