Fundamental upper body movements: PUSH, PULL, CARRY

How do you organize your upper body workouts?

In this month’s blog, let's discuss the fundamental upper body movements of push, pull, carry. Sometimes when we get into the gym, it’s hard to know how to organize our upper body workouts. It’s hard to know what is most efficient and which exercises will have the best functional carry over in improving our performance with activities of daily life or our specific sport. The first thing we want to consider is training movements, not isolated muscles. There is nothing wrong with throwing in a few specific muscle exercises, but you want to make sure that you have your fundamental movements as a priority. When we focus on training movements, we are able to train the entire body much more efficiently. Let’s break the movements down a bit.

Be efficient in the gym.

“Push” exercises involve PUSHING something away and can be done in a horizontal plane (like a push up for example) or vertically (like a shoulder press). “Pull” exercises again can be done in a horizontal or a vertical plane, where you are PULLING yourself up. Examples with a horizontal pull exercise is a chest supported row and a vertical pull exercise could be a pull up. A “carry” exercise involves using all of your muscles in order to CARRY a heavy weight and a great example is the farmer’s carry exercise. Now, a fantastic way to make your training efficient is to train opposite movements back to back, also known as supersets! For example, coupling a push up with a chest supported row right after it, is a great way to be efficient in the gym as the pull exercise gives the push muscles an active rest, so you can just bang them out back to back! Another example could be coupling a shoulder press with a pull up. 

It’s important to be well-rounded.

As a PT, I try to emphasize the importance of functional movements with training as well as addressing muscular imbalances. So, if you know that your triceps are particularly weak and causing problems around your shoulder or your elbow, by all means- add in a triceps exercise into your upper body routine. You just want to make sure you are being well-rounded, as push exercises tend to be much easier and are generally favored in the gym, so it’s important to be mindful of including those pulls and carries too! Happy lifting!