New Year Workout Challenge Day 2: 25-Minute Upper Body Push Workout (Athlete 25)

Today, we're building seriously strong chest, shoulders, and triceps in this upper body push workout. It's designed to push your limits, and you're gonna fight for every last rep in this rep drop format. This is day two of my Athlete 25 program, and you can get the full program when you click the link in the description below. Or better yet, hit that join button and become part of my YouTube membership community so we can train together side by side and crush your fitness goals. All right, welcome Back to Athlete 25, Day 2. Today is all about the upper body, and specifically your upper body. Push muscles means your chest, your shoulders, and your triceps. Typically, nine times out of 10 where males are stronger than females. That's right.

That's right. We like these workouts, and we're gonna. We're gonna crush this one. Let's go, guys.

Tim is definitely gonna shine in this workout. These are a muscle group that he is the strongest in. You will see both of us, though, fighting for every last rep. It is gonna be a rep drop format, which means you are going to go heavy. You are going to do 10 reps of every exercise, then 8 reps and then 6 reps. So the reps are going to drop. You're going to do three sets total. So it's tri sets where maximum muscle building happens. And you're going to break it down into two big circuits. Three moves for a circuit. Shoulders, chest, triceps, hitting those muscle groups. And then we got a fun power move for you in between. You ready to do this?

Let's go.

Ready to knock it out? Oh, we got our dumbbells. Today I have anywhere from 15 to 25 pounds with me. Tim's got all the way up to 40 pounds over there. I'm going to be using a bench. Tim's going to show you how you can do everything from the floor. Pick your level, grab your weights. We're going to get warmed up, and then we're going to jump into this workout.

Let's go.

All right, so starting with a warm up right here. Feet are shoulder width distance apart. Big inhale, reach up. Exhale, baby back bend. Hands are going to stay right here. Goal posted. You're going to go palms down, palms up. Reach overhead. Actively pull down, palms down, palms up. Reach and pull. This is a nice big shoulder complex, right? Rotating that shoulder through its full range of motion. Big push overhead. Push and pull. Nice. Palms down, palms up. Push and pull. One more. Palms down, palms up, Push and pull. This time, reach up overhead and just give Me some alternating shoulder sweeps to the back. Nice. Switch directions. Take it forward. Warming up those shoulders. Warming up those shoulders. Nice. Take it to the back of your space. We're going to go into a plank walkout.

We're to going.

You get that core fired up, too. Hands hit the mat, walk out. Find a high plank. Option A. Stay here. Option B, drop your hips, open up the front side of your body. Tuck your toes under. Walk it back in. Big reach up overhead. Do it again. Hands hit the mat, walk out. Find that high plank option to drop those hips and open the front side of the body. Tuck the toes, walk it back in. Nice work. One more plank, walk out. Right here. Walk it out. Find that high plank option to drop the hips. This time you're going to tuck the toes and you're going to hold that high plank option is always to drop your knees in. Plank holding. Plank. Give me shoulder taps. Opposite hand, opposite shoulder. 8, 7, 6. You got it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Drop down to all fours. Little cat. Cow. Drop the belly. Lift the chin. Reverse it. Tuck the chin. Spine goes up towards the ceiling. Nice. From here, find a nice, neutral, flat back. Walk your hands away from you. Forehead's going to hit the mat. Puppy dog stretch. Big inhale through your nose. Exhale. Armpits melt down to the ground. I love doing this before overhead presses, which you're going to see in today's workout. One more big inhale. Exhale. Drop your armpits to the mat. Nice. Come back up. Staying here. Take your hands nice and wide. This time you're going to give me a shoulder roll. So drop right shoulder to the mat. Up and over. Rotate left shoulder to the mat. Nice. Right shoulder to the mat. Nice. And left shoulder to the mat. Nice. From here, stay here. Take this left arm down to the mat, right hand behind your head. Drop your elbow and just rotate through that spine. One more time, Drop the elbow, rotate through the spine. Plant both hands on the ground. Tuck the toes. Hips go up and back. Down dog. Shift forward. High plank. Down dog. Rotate. Stretch. Open up those hammies from yesterday. Shift forward. High plank. One more down dog. Shift forward. High plank. Drop to all fours, right forearm on the ground, left hand behind the head. Drop the elbow. Rotate through that spine like you're wringing out a washcloth in your back. Drop the elbow, rotate through that spine. Nice. From here, find that plank. One more down. Dog. Walk your hands back to meet your feet. Roll up one vertebrae at a time. You can grab a lighter weight if you want to. We'll Do a couple external shoulder rotation. Palms facing right here. Dumbbells in one hand. Doesn't matter. Just going to rotate and bring it in. Palm, faces, body, palm comes right here. Just getting that shoulder joint nice and warm. The shoulder is actually the most mobile joint in the body, which means it's the most susceptible or prone to injury. We're going to get it nice and warm. Focus on chest, shoulder, triceps. Say one more. Nice work. Switch your arm right here. Lock that elbow in at the side. Arm is bent at 90 degrees. Palm in and rotate out. A little internal external rotation. Get that shoulder nice and warm. In and out. Nice. You've got two more right here. And then we're going to jump into circuit one. But before we do that, actually we have a buy in for you. You know, we're starting every workout with a buy in. That's 25 reps. Weights are down. You're going to do your buy in. It's body weight only. You can download your PDF tracking sheet in the description below so you can track every weight you use and how many reps you get of every exercise. Because we need to track our weights and track our progress. This is how you get better. Right there. You track it and you see yourself progressively use heavier weights. Get more push ups. This is where we're starting. It's 25 reps. It's a push up and a shoulder tap. Your option is going to be to do this from your knees. Push up shoulder tap. That's one push up shoulder tap. That's two. You're going to give me 25 reps total. Tim's going to go slow so he can stick with me because he can crank out push ups like nobody's business. It's a push up and a shoulder tap. You've got 25 and we knock it out in three, two. Let's go this year by and leave with your chest tap the shoulder. That's one push up. That's two push ups. That's three. Lead with the chest. Elbows fall back towards the body. Hold at the top for a second. Your option is always to do this from your knees. Your other option would be to drop down to an inch or up to an incline. Put the hands on that bench. Nice work. Yes, team. Come on. That's 10. Let's go. 11. 12. You got it. 13. One rep at a time. You are fighting for it. Push ups are never going to get easier. You are going to get stronger. A Harvard study found that men who could do 40 push ups significantly reduce their Chance of cardiovascular disease. My goal right now is 40 consecutive push ups because of that. So I have five left. Five. Let's go. Four. It's getting harder. Three. Each hip is crushing it.

It's getting hard.

Two, not even shaking. And one. Holy bananas. It's one way to start a workout.

25 pushups, you make it harder when you go slower.

You know, slower's harder, slower's harder. I say that all the time. Now you know why. All right, first circuit, you're gonna go shoulder press. After doing push ups, shoulder press is gonna be hard. Shoulder press, overhead tricep extensions, chest press. Do all those for 10 reps. Then you'll go to 8 reps and then 6 reps. Let's see if I can use my 20s after that shoulder press. Rack them, and you're just pushing overhead like that for 10. It's gonna get seriously gritty in here. 10 reps. 10 reps of shoulder presses. You're there in three, two. Let's go. Rack them and push. One. Inhale down. Exhale, push. I said in the beginning. Shoulders, the most mobile joint. You know what that means? Most susceptible to injury. Overhead press is something you commonly lose as you age.

You've got five. You've got four. You've got three.

Come on, Lindsey.

Two.

Come on, Lindsey. One. Tim made it look so easy, didn't he? Good news is, is the reps drop. Okay, Here we go.

That's right.

Overhead tricep extensions.

With that being said, though, you should be able to do some good weights.

Yeah. The goal is to go heavy here. Here we go. Ten. Overhead tricep extensions. Gonna go like this. Hide it, show it, hide it, show it. You've got 10. And three. Three.

Two.

Let's go. Down, up. That's 1. Bending just at that elbow joint.

2. 3.

You got this.

4.

5. Nice work. 6. You're doing awesome. 7.

8. 9.

10. Knowing how many reps you have to do should make going heavier easier, right?

It's true.

All right, chest fly. You only got to do 10 reps if you did overload. 30. This program is meant to come next. Less reps, less reps, more weight. Less reps, more weight. Here we go. Lying on your back. 10. Dumbbell chest press. Inhale down. Exhale, push. You're chest pressing in.

3.

2. Let's go. Push.

1, 2, 3. 4.

Exhale, push. Arms are falling down at that light angle, right? Be kind to your shoulder. Where do you have the most leverage? Nice. Two more in the tank. Down, up. One more left. Inhale. Down, exhale, push. If those last two to three reps are not challenging you, you gotta go heavier. Those are your three moves. Grab your PDF tracker. How did you do? What weights did you use? You're down to 8 reps. Same 3 moves, 2 less reps per move. Praise Jesus for that. Okay. Especially those shoulder presses. Same thing. Can you stick with the same weight or maybe go heavier? I'm gonna try and stick with the same way. Can I use twenties? You got eight shoulder presses. Eight shoulder presses.

All right, you can do it.

Here we go. You can do it. That's right. We're doing less reps than we did in overload 30. Which means can you go heavier than you did in overload 30? Rack them. Eight shoulder press in three, two. Let's go. Press.

One, two.

Is Tim smiling or squinting? I'm always squinting.

Three, four.

Halfway. Now I switch cycle.

Four, three, two.

Come on, Lindsay, finish it. One. Shoulders will always be my least favorite exercise or my least favorite muscle group. What's your least favorite, Tim?

Least favorite? Yeah, front weighted squats of some kind.

Anything front loaded? Yeah, anything front loaded. Tricep extensions. You got eight of them. Tricep extensions. You got eight. We go in three, two. Let's go. Bend. Extend for eight. Seven. You got this.

Six.

Stay with it. Five.

Four. Three, Two.

One. Holy bananas. What were you using there? He's got a big weight. Impressive. Impressive. All right, chest press. Chest press for eight. Chest press is my favorite. Is chest press your favorite?

I always like some chest presses, similar to push ups. One of my favorites.

Push ups. This guy's favorite move is push ups. Let's hear some comments on that. All right, here we go. Eight chest press in three, two. Let's go. Push it. That first one doesn't count. Let's go. Go. 8. You got to get those weights up. Go. 7. Inhale down. Exhale, push. Nice. You want to get stronger at push ups. You do chest presses. Come on. Nice work. Two more. Two more. Inhale down. Exhale, push. One more. One more. Inhale down. Exhale, push. That's eight. Nice work, team. All right, back to the top three moves one last time through them. And the good news is you only do six reps. So if you are not feeling the fire, you got to increase those weights. My goal is just to maintain right here. Can I stick with these twenties for shoulder presses? That is my hurdle today.

You know what really kicked it off though? Is that 25 push ups.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Muscles are tired and then. Yeah, let's go.

Yeah. After doing 25 push ups, you got to go into shoulder presses. Feel it. You feel it. You feel it. You like to start your workouts, you start chest day with push ups.

That's true.

Yeah.

Slow ones. Slow ones. I didn't make you do slow ones. He's conditioned for this. He's ready for this. All right, here we go. Eight shoulder press. Eight shoulder press. You're there. Oh, no. It's just six. Thank you. Thank you. We go in three, two. Let's go.

Six.

Five. Nice work.

Four.

Come on.

Three. Come on. Two. Come on.

One. How many times they say come on Every rep. Whoo. Shoulder presses are deadly, but so good for you. We lose that ability to take our arms overhead as we age. So important. All right, here we go. Tricep extensions. You only got six of them. Let's make them count.

Yep.

Grab that weight. 6. Tricep extensions overhead in 3 and 2. Let's go. Go. 6. Inhale down. Exhale. Push. 6. Come on. 5. Did you know the triceps make up two thirds of your upper arm? Two thirds of your upper arm. Let's go, triceps. Two and one. You're out. Yes. Chest press. Chest press for six. Chest press for six. Finish strong. Maybe you can go up right here. Challenge yourself. Don't leave any reps in the tank. Not here. The good news is you get a. A nice little power cardio shakeout after this. Give me six chest press in three, two. Get them up. That first one doesn't count. Here we go. Inhale down. Exhale. Push. Six. Five. You got this. Four. Stay with it. Three. Nice work. Two and one. Awesome job, team. First circuit in the books. Track it. Write it down on your PDF tracker. You can download this for free in the description below. Track it. That's how we get better. Grab a quick sip of water. All right, your power shakeout between, you're gonna give me 10 chest to floor burpees. 10 chest to floor burpees? Yes. Say I can. If chest chest of floor burpees are not available to you, you can take one or two weights because you're giving me a squat thruster. Squat thruster. So you're squatting and pressing one dumbbell or two dumbbells overhead. That is your alternative. Otherwise, you're counting 10 burpees. You ready, Tim?

Let's rock and roll. Come on.

Let's rock and roll. He says 10 chest to floor burpees. I'm coming your way so I don't hit the bench. 10 chest to floor burpees in three, two. Let's go. One. Here we go.

Come on.

I know a lot of trainers hate on the burpee. Say what you want about it, it is a functional and fast way to get your body up off the ground. Right? It is a functional and fast way to get your body up off the ground. We're gonna do that for a lot of years to come. Come on, you got three more.

Three.

Come on.

Two.

Nice work. One. Yeah. Burpees. Love to love them or love to hate them, Tim.

Love to love them.

Love to love them. Circuit two. We are gonna hit some of your smaller shoulder, chest, and tricep muscles. So we hit your big ones first. Now we're gonna isolate and we're gonna go small, right? 10 lateral raises right here. Hitting your delt. 10. Skull crushers. 10. Chest fly. Those are your three moves. Lat raises, Skull crushers, chest fly. I am going to try my 20s. My 15s are going to be mighty close. I'm going to try my 20s. I've been working for a long time to go up and wait in lateral raises, skull crushers and chest slides. Let's see what we got. 10 reps. You ready, Tim?

Ready.

Grab your weights. You can always alternate arms. You got 10. We go in three. Two. Let's go. Go. 10. Lifting just up to shoulder height. Nine. You got it.

Eight.

Stay with it. Seven. Come on.

Six.

I'm gonna get to five and swap. Five. Gotta switch it out. Here we go. Nice work.

You got four.

Is it four or three? Two. Okay. Tim's counting. Nope. We got one more. I think we got one more. Okay.

Okay.

There we go. Who's counting?

Who's gone?

I don't know. It's too hard. All right, same thing. Skull Crushers. Try and start with my 20s. Tim's gonna go on his back. I'm gonna go on the bench. I've been working really hard to go up and wait in Skull Crusher. Yeah. Take my weights. Skull Crushers bend. Extend just at that elbow joint lying on your back. You have 10 of them. 10 of them. Skull crushers for 10. Skull crushers for 10. You go in three, two. Let's go. Inhale down, Exhale, push. Inhale down, exhale, push. Okay. These are all smaller isolation muscle groups, so it's a lot harder to go up and wait in them if you are struggling to go up and wait. Focus on lengthening the muscle and then contracting the muscle. Muscle. Get the nice stretch at the bottom and then really contract as you push overhead Nice. This is four. Come on. Three left. Three left. Inhale down. Exhale. Push for three. Two more. Two more. Inhale down. Exhare. Push for two. Last one, last one. Inhale down. Exhang. Push. Ten reps. You did it. You're gonna stay right here. Chest fly. Soft arc in the arms, opening up. I'm gonna get a little bit more stretch here on the bench. So if you cannot increase your weights on this one, try going up to a bench. Get a greater range of motion. Progressive overload is not always about going heavier. It can be increasing that range of motion. 10, chest flies. Soft arc in the arms. Inhale down. Exhale, Close in three, two. Let's go. Open and close. That's one. So again, if you cannot increase your weight, focus on the stretch on the way down and the contraction on the way up. I like to think about an egg resting between my pec and my armpit. And as I come up, I am crushing or cracking that egg open. I'm a very visual learner if you can't tell. Nice work. What are you thinking about, Tim?

I'm thinking about this burning.

Four left. Come on. Four. Come on. These are the last three reps. You should have to fight for them. Three.

Focus on keeping my arms straight.

Two.

Stretching.

And one. Oh. Holy bananas. Nice work, guys. Awesome job. You're down to eights. You're down to eights. You ready? Here we go. Eight lat raises. Eight skull crushers. Eight chest flies. Say yes, I can for eight. Grab your weights.

Grab your weight.

Go up here.

Look at him. He's going up. He's going up. We go in three, two. Let's go. You are working, literally one of the smallest shoulder muscles, the lateral delt, in this exercise, which, with a long lever. See how long your arm is? Longer the lever, harder the exercise. That's why it's so hard to go up in weights in these. Come on. That's five. Three left. Three, left.

Six.

You got it. Seven. You could always alternate arms.

Eight.

Nice work. That's my next goal to get to 20s on that. Get to 20s on that. All right, skull crushers and chest flies. Skull crushers and chest flies. It's taking me a lot of reps to get to 20s on these. You got eight skull crushers on your back. On your back. It starts in three, two. Let's go. I talk about this a lot, guys, but it is why we are here. It is having a progress goal. I want to get to £20 on my lat raises. That is a progress goal. And that is going to fire me up and it is going to keep me coming back for more. All right, set a progress goal. I want to do all 25 pushups from my toes, whatever it is. You got two reps left. Come on. Inhale down. Exhale, push. You got one more left. Inhale down. Exhale, push. Yes, team, that is eight. Now you got to give me eight chest flies. Eight chest flies. How we feeling?

Oh, it's burning.

It's burning. Chest flies, though, going down. Adjust your weights as you need to. You got eight chest flies. Come on, set yourself up. Soft arc in those arms. Let's go. All the way open, all the way close. In three, two. Let's go. Open. Get that nice stretch at the bottom, then contract. Crack that egg. Inhale down, exhale, close. You got this, team. I don't know what it is about the chest fly, but man, do I always feel it the next day, really contracting, stretching at the bottom, then contracting that pec muscle. You got three more. Let's go. Inhale down, exhale. Three. This is where you got to fight. You got to fight for every last rep. Right here for two. Come on, fight for it. You got one more in the tank. Inhale down, exhale, close. The fight's getting hard. The fight is getting hard. Stay in a team. You got one more round. You got one more round. It is six. Six lat raises, six skull crushers, and six chest flies. Can you push your limits to the max here? Can you hit that fatigue and failure by the end of this six reps, and then you gotta burn out. You gotta burn out. And it's burpees. It's chest to floor burpees. We're staying on them. Grab your weights. Give me six. Can I do the 20s? Let's try.

Gotta start there.

Worst cases, you fail, right? Worst case is you fail. You got six lat raises in three, two. Let's go.

Close your eyes, grit your teeth.

Give me six.

Give me five.

Come on, you got this.

Give me four.

Yes. Three. Come on.

Two.

One more. One more. Didn't make it. Didn't make it. That's okay. I write it down, give myself five and a half. Five and a half is better than nothing. Five and a half is better than nothing. All right, you got six skull crushers. You got six skull crushers. Let's go. Finish strong. Six skull crushers in three, two. Let's go. Inhale down, exhale, push. Training like this, right here. This rep drop format. That's how I got to 20s, guys. That's how I got to 20s and raises skull crushers and chest flies. Playing with that rep range and just reaching for heavier weights. One more, one more. Inhale down. Exhale. Push. It's hard.

It should be.

It's hard. It should be. Six chest flies. Six chest flies and the weights are down. And all that's left is your burnout. Six chest flies and the weights are down. Last move with weights. Let's go. Come on. Six chest flies in three, four, two. Let's go. Chest, shoulders, and triceps are so sinking on fire for six. You got this. Five. Do you literally, like, I visibly, like, feel my body getting stronger. For three.

For four.

Come on.

Five.

One more. Fight for it, fight for it, fight for it. Let's go. Inhale down. Exhale. Close it. Yes. So pumped to put these weights away. So pumped to put these weights away. And I feel so stinking strong right now. Write it down. Track it. Ready for the burnout?

Ready?

You are gonna give me eight chest to floor burpees. You are gonna breathe for 20 seconds. You're gonna rest, and then you're gonna give me chest, six chest to floor burpees, and then you're gonna hold a plank. Got it? Finish strong. Eight burpees. Breathe. Six burpees right into a plank. Your eight burpees, chest to floor option is squat thrusters. Remember, squat thrusters is your modification. We go in three, two. Let's go. Give me eight.

Come on, eight.

Let's go. Let's go. You got this. Seven. Yes, team, stronger together right here. Six. Nice work. Finish it. Five. Four. Come on. You got this.

Three. Four.

Let's go. Let's Go.

Two.

Finish it. One. Rest. Press for 20 seconds. Breathe. Hands on knees. Shoulders on fire.

Your shoulders, muscles back here.

Now you're getting all over the place. Six. You got 10 more seconds to breathe. Six chest to floor burpees. Once you finish those six, you go right into a plank hold. We all hit the deck in three and two. Let's go. Six burpees. Come on. Six.

You got this.

Five. Let's go.

Four.

Nice work. Finish it.

Three, two.

One more. Hold, plank. Hold, plank. I'm hitting my forearms. Just hold. Hold, plank. Your option is always to take this kneeling. You can always take this kneeling. Find that plank. Hold. Alternating arm extensions.

Reach, reach.

Shoulders reach.

Let's go.

Reach.

Come on. You got 30 seconds of this and you are done. Shoulders are so on fire. They're getting stronger. Your core is lighting up each time you reach that arm away from you. You got it. Finish right here. What would it look like if I said 10, 9, 8. You got this. 7. Stay with it. 6. You're getting stronger with each rep. Fight for it for 4, 3, 2, and 1. Hit your knees. Yes. Team, let's go. We did. It was tough, quick, and dirty. Chest, shoulders, triceps on fire. Find your tabletop. Just breathe and make some shoulder. Just make some circles around your shoulders. Fire. Switch directions. Make some circles. My shoulders are so on fire. Take your hands and just flip them back towards you. Stretch out those forearms from both day one and day two. Nice. From here, those shoulder rolls we did in the beginning, arms go wide. Drop right ear, right shoulder to the mat. Switch it. Drop left ear, left shoulder to the mat.

That feels even better than the first time, right?

Feels so good. Do it one more time each way. Right here. Right shoulder. Left your left shoulder. So proud of you guys for showing up and crushing today's workout. Here we go. Walk those hands away. Forehead to the mat. Big inhale through your nose. Big open mouth, exhale. Reach those fingertips away from your spine One more time. Big inhale through the nose. Open mouth, exhale. You did it, team. I'm so proud of you. Way to show up. Way to work hard.

Nice job.

All right, we did arms today. You're back on this mat tomorrow for leg day. Leg day, baby. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Awesome job. Crushing arm day. If you loved it, hit subscribe to my channel. I've cued up day three. Leg day right here. Forget this entire two week challenge in this playlist right here. Have a great day.