Pushing My Upper Body Routine

When quarantine struck in March of 2020, I started exercising at home with 2 sets of dumbbells. After a few months, I was doing more and more reps. For example, I started by doing 20-25 push-ups at a time, but I've been doing 30 for each set for about the last year. I started with 15 reps of a 40 lb dumbbell for one-armed back rows, but I quickly worked that up to 20 reps. And some tricep dips worked their way from 20 reps up to 30 by the end of last summer.

Well, those numbers have pretty much been stuck there for the last 9+ months or so, and I figured it was time to "reset my normal" for lifting weights.

So for last week's workouts, I changed the rep count of my normal sets to this:

- Push-ups: from 30 up to 35
- One-arm dumbbell rows (back) with 40 lbs: from 20 up to 22
- Pull-ups: from 8 up to 9
- Bicep hammer curls with 30 lb dumbbells: from 30 up to 36

So no BIG jumps, but still adding 10-20% to everything, which seems like plenty. I didn't change my triceps dips, but those are at the end of my workouts, so I usually just do what I can - I figured if I COULD do more, I'd START doing more.

The first time I tried this was on Tuesday for a "normal" workout of 5 sets of everything, and I felt the extra work! (My normal workout is push-ups/back rows x5, then pull-ups x5 [with a break in the middle to do some PT shoulders], then bi/tri x5.) I was only able to get the extra pull-up on my last 2 sets. And my arms and back felt extra good/sore the next day!

On Saturday, I did my normal "circuit" workout where instead of doing super-sets of similar muscle groups (like I usually do on Tues and Thurs), I instead do each muscle group for a set and keep repeating. So it looks like: push-ups, back rows, pull-ups, bicep curls, tricep dips, REPEAT. That was KILLER with the new numbers. I could only do the newer/higher numbers for push-ups and pull-ups on the first set, but was able to keep back rows and biceps at the newer/higher numbers for all 7 rounds. And here are two selfies from when I was done:

Feeling pumped. Ignore the pitted 110-year-old mirror.


I cut off my feet, otherwise you'd see I was lifting in my slippers.

It's no surprise that I decided to work harder in my upper body workouts when I'm coming off a running injury. I find that I like to make sure I'm pushing myself physically in at least 1 or 2 areas at a time: I started biking harder on the trainer once I was injured from running, and now I'm working harder while lifting. All while having to run easy. Not shocking.