Upper Body Strength Training

[Andrea]

Yes, I belong to a gym. I can try to do an upper body workout after my spinning classes a few days a week. I had an entire body one set up when I had my initial training session at the gym and I could do the upper body part that he set up for me.

Would a half hour of upper body work be of any value or should I really just make enough time for an hour session?

You can do half an hour as long as you focus on compound movements and you superset things...

Example:

1 set of 8-10 bench presses
1 set of 8-10 machine rows

Repeat that 3 times

1 set of 8-10 shoulder presses
1 set of 8-10 pulldowns

Repeat 3 times

Etc...

You'll work out your arms as well as your bigger torso muscles by doing exercises that involve movement at both the elbow and the shoulder.

Edit: Couple things I forgot...
-Since you alternate muscle groups by supersetting, you don't have to rest very long between sets, so you can go faster (the pushing muscles rest while you're working out the pulling muscles).

-You can switch it up on the # of reps. Try increasing weight & decreasing reps or increasing reps & decreasing weight. Variety is good.

-Use machines or freeweights (I'm a fan of free weights, but it won't make a huge difference in this type of application)