Workout of the week: 12-min AMRAP upper body workout

ALL LEVELS / AMRAP upper body workout / 12 minutes

Equipment: Dips bar, dumbbells, incline chest press machine & lat pull-down machine

Looking for new ways to spice up your workouts? Have you tried training to failure? It’s a technique that involves pushing your muscles to their absolute limit, squeezing out every last repetition until you can’t do any more. This approach can help maximize muscle growth and strength gains by fully exhausting the muscle fibres. Plus, it challenges your routine and can help break through plateaus. 

You can start now with this AMRAP upper body workout. It consists of 4 exercises, to perform in as many rounds as possible (that’s what this AMRAP stands for) until you can’t do another rep. To maximize this workout effectiveness, use bigger weights than usual.

1. Dips
2. Plank row
3. Incline chest press
4. Lat pull-down

Let’s do this! 

WORKOUT SETUP

• 4 exercises
• AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible)
• To failure
• 12 minutes total
• Equipment: Dips bar, dumbbells, incline chest press machine & lat pull-down machine

WORKOUT EXERCISE LIST

As Many Rounds As Possible

1 – DIPS

To failure

• Grab the bars and boost yourself up. Engage the core, looking forward.
• Bend your knees — it will help you with stabilisation.
• Keeping your elbows at your side, lower your body. Your triceps should be parallel to the floor.
• Bring yourself back up without locking your elbows.
• Repeat.

2 – PLANK ROW

To failure

• Assume a pushup position and place your hands on a set of dumbbells.
• Ensure your arms remain fully extended, aligning your hands beneath your shoulders and orienting your palms toward each other.
• Maintain your core engaged, keeping your elbows in proximity to your body, and lift a single dumbbell off the floor.
• As you raise your elbow as high as you can, contract your shoulder blades together.
• Perform the same motion with the opposite arm.

3 – INCLINE CHEST PRESS

To failure

• Lean back and press your feet actively onto the floor.
• Find a symmetrical grip that lets your forearms stand almost parallel to the floor in the starting position.
• Engage your core and press forward and up with as much as possible.
• Make sure your back stays in contact with the cushion behind you.
• Repeat.

4 – LAT PULL-DOWN

To failure

• Adjust the pad on your legs to reduce the movement.
• Grasp the bar above your head with a wide grip. Keep looking forward with your torso upright.
• Engage your shoulder blades, and then pull the bar down in front of you – upper chest level.
• Squeeze your lats at the bottom of the move and avoid leaning back too much to facilitate the movement.
• Slowly return up and repeat.

If you liked this AMRAP upper body workout, you’ll find similar challenges below:

• 15-min metabolic strength workout
• 12-min lower-body strength and conditioning workout 
• 30-min EMOM full-body workout
• 30-min zone 2 cardio workout
• 15-min lower body strength workout
• 20-min EMOM strength workout
• 30-min upper body strength workout
• 35-min full-body strength workout
• 16-min back and shoulder workout
• 20-min metabolic strength workout
• 25-min shoulder strength workout
• 24-min EMOM lower-body workout