4 Ridiculously Hard Upper Body Calisthenics Workouts

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Meaning if you click on a link and make a purchase, I'll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

When it comes to building the muscle, strength, and power of a finely tuned calisthenics athlete. It goes without saying that you need an effective upper body calisthenics workout to get the job done.

And I’m not talking about doing a few sets of pushups and calling it a day.

I’m talking about a strategic, no-nonsense plan of action that, when used correctly, will build the type of lean, mean physique that the gods themselves would envy.

Now, there’s a common misconception in the fitness industry that it’s almost impossible to get impressive results using only calisthenics.

And while I’ll agree that you’re not going to look like Mr. Olyimpia anytime soon. The fact remains that an effective upper body calisthenics workout is the missing piece of the puzzle for building relative strength…

…Lean and functional muscle.

And extreme muscular endurance that would put most lifters to shame.

Anyway…

Being the avid calisthenics junkie that I am. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of experimenting with calisthenics.

And in that time, I’ve developed (what I feel) are a few pretty awesome workouts that go way beyond just the typical fluff and filler that most people preach.

So in today’s blog post, I’m going to take you a few (four to be exact) of my very own tried and tested upper body calisthenics workouts to help you reach your goals.

So sit back, relax, and read on my calisthenics brother because today, I’m leaving no stone left unturned…

WATCH VIDEO: Discover How To Build Huge Slabs Of Muscle, Extreme Power, And The Ripped Body Of A Calisthenics Warrior Using Nothing More Than A Bar And Your Own Bodyweight…

(Video Will Open In A New Window)

Table of Contents

The Basic Upper Body Movement Patterns

So when it comes to upper body calisthenic, there are only four specific movement patterns you need to be concerned with.

They are…

Pullups/Chinups (vertical pull)
Parallel Bar Dips (vertical push)
Inverted Rows (horizontal pull)
Pushups (horizontal pull)

Now, the reason these four movement patterns are so important is that they’re…

All compound movements (work multiple muscle groups)
Adaptable (lots of progressions)
Easy to load for weighted calisthenics (I’ll touch on this a little later)

In addition to this, when combined, these exercises cover pretty much every muscle in the upper body.

The only place they don’t hit effectively is probably the side delts and the upper traps.

But to be honest, this shouldn’t be too big of a deal. And if you’re concerned, you can always throw in some lateral raises for good measure.

4 Killer Upper Body Calisthenics Workouts

Now, because I don’t personally know you, I didn’t want to just throw one or two random workouts into this post because they might not be relevant enough for you to reach your goals.

For instance, I know some people reading this will want a fast-paced, high-intensity workout while others will want something to help them build size or strength.

With this in mind, I’ve included a little something for everyone. So you’re bound to find at least one of the workouts below to your liking.

Workout 1: 10 Minute Upper Body Crusher

So this first workout is a simple, bare-bones essentials calisthenics workout that focuses on two movement patterns…

…Pullups and dips.

If I were only allowed to do two upper body exercises for the rest of my life, then it would (without a doubt) be these two exercises right here.

Don’t get me wrong, the other movement patterns are important too.

But in my experience, nothing (and I mean nothing) compares to the upper body blast you’ll get from this killer combination.

Anyway, here’s the workout…

50 Pullups
100 Dips
Aim to complete it in 10 minutes

I know on the surface this looks ridiculously basic. But the idea behind this workout is that you get yourself into beast mode and literally go balls to the wall until you’ve completed every single rep.

What I like to do here is plan ahead a little and set a timer to go off at 1-minute intervals.

Then, I’ll attempt to complete a specific number of reps during each interval while alternating between each exercise.

Kind of like a superset. But a lot harder.

To give you an example of what I mean, you could structure the workout like this.

15 Pullup
30 Dips
10 Pullups
20 Dips
10 Pullups
20 Dips
8 Pullups
15 Dips
7 Pullups
15 Dips

Total Reps: 50 Pullups & 100 Dips

To be honest, the first time I attempted this workout, the intervals kind of went out the window.

It was probably my own fault because I went to failure and performed more reps during the first 2 intervals. Which ended up having a knock-on effect with the rest of the workout.

I did, however, manage to complete every rep with the 10 minute time frame.

But I’d recommend having a bit of a strategy in place to get the most out of your time.

Workout 2: The Regression

So the idea behind this workout is that you start with a difficult calisthenics progression you can do for around 10 reps…

…Rep out until near failure.

…Rest for 30-60 seconds

And then regress the exercise to an easier variation and continue to hammer out reps.

This is another great workout for getting a lot of volume into your workout.

And once you’ve got a few months of training experience under your belt. It won’t be uncommon to perform six, seven, or even eight sets or more in quick succession.

Let me give you an example of how this would work…

So let’s say you could perform 10 archer pullups until you reached failure.

You’d simply do your reps…

…Rest

And then regress the exercise to let’s say, regular wide-grip chinups.

The whole thing might look a little something like this…

Archer Pullups
Wide Grip Pullups
Archer Chinups
Wide Grip Chinups
Medium Grip Pullups
Medium Grip Chinups
Narrow Grip Pullups
Narrow Grip Chinups

Now, this might look a little complex at first glance, but it’s actually pretty straightforward.

And because you’re repping out to failure multiple times, It’s not uncommon to see massive increases in both your muscular endurance and size.

Here’s what the rest of the workout could look like depending on how you like to do things.

Parallel Bar Dip Regressions

Straight Bar Dips
Tucked Dips (tuck your knees towards your chest and perform dips)
Uneven Dips (shift your weight from side to side during each repetition)
Regular Parallel Bar Dips
Bench Dips

Inverted Row Regressions

Feet Elevated Uneven Inverted Row (shift weight from side to side)
Feet Elevated Inverted Row
Inverted Row (feet on the floor)
Standing Inverted Row/Australian Pullup

Pushup Regressions

Pseudo Pushups
Archer Pushups
Decline Pushups
Close Grip Pushups
Wide Grip Pushups
Incline Pushups

Abdominal Regressions

L-Sit (hold until failure)
Tucked L-Sit (tuck your knees towards your chest and hold)
Leg Raises
Knee Raises
Plank (hold until failure)

Now, the order you perform these exercises is entirely up to you.

However, I’ve always found that doing them in the order below is a lot more beneficial.

Pullups
Dips
Inverted Rows
Pushups
Abs

Here’s why…

Firstly, it allows your body more recovery time between exercises.

I mean, attempting pushups directly after dips, is going to have a massive effect on how well you can max out on your pushups.

And second, performing a pulling exercise before a push stabilizes the shoulder muscles by allowing more blood flow into the shoulder joint.

A side effect of this is that you’ll be able to push out more reps (or lift more weight) directly after a pulling exercise.

Source: T-Nation

Workout 3: Upper Body Strength Workout

Moving swiftly on…

So the next set of exercises are going to utilize weighted calisthenics so you can focus purely on building up your strength.

You’ll need a few things to perform this workout like a weighted vest, dip belt, and ideally a weighted backpack.

Anyway…

It’s basically a 5×5 routine (5 sets of 5 reps) that focuses on the four upper body compound movements.

To make things worse, it also utilizes supersets to cut your training time down significantly.

Here it is for your viewing pleasure…

Superset 1:

Pullups
Parallel Bar Dips

Perform 5 sets of 5 reps

Superset 2:

Inverted Rows
Pushups

Perform 5 sets of 5 reps

Because this is a strength workout, you’ll want to take at least 3 minutes rest after each set to give your body a chance to fully recover.

In addition to this. I’d also recommend taking at least 5 minutes rest between superset 1 and 2 to get the most out of your pushups and rows.

Now, if you wanted to, you could swap the order of supersets every other workout so that you were performing rows and pushups first.

However, I wouldn’t do this too often because pullups and dips are generally more demanding. And you might find it massively decreases your workout output if you place them at the end regularly.

Either way, just make sure you complete all 25 reps to reap the full strength benefits of this workout.

Workout 4: The Muscle Builder

This is another weighted calisthenics workout that utilizes the exact same principles as the previous workout.

Only now, you’re going to up the volume and reduce the rest periods to turn it into a mass building, fat-torching workout.

Here’s how it’s gonna go down…

Superset 1:

Pullups
Parallel Bar Dips

Perform 6 sets of 6 reps

Superset 2:

Inverted Rows
Pushups

Perform 6 sets of 6 reps

So to get the most out of this workout, you’ll want to load the exercise up with a weight that you can comfortably perform 10 reps with on your first set.

Only you’re not going to perform 10 reps. You’re only going to do 6 reps.

And the reason behind this is because you’re only going to take 30 seconds of rest between each superset.

So you’ll perform…

Pullups
Parallel Bar Dips
Rest 30 seconds
Pullups
Parallel Bar Dips
Rest 30 seconds

And you’ll continue to do this until you’ve completed all 6 sets (36 reps total).

Now, due to the sheer volume of this workout, it should help you pack on huge slabs of lean muscle in a relatively short space of time.

Better still, because the rest periods are short. It’ll keep your heart rate in the ‘Fat Burning Zone’ which will help torch fat from your frame in record time.

At least in my experience anyway.

Moving Beyond The Basics Of Upper Body Calisthenics

So there you have it, 4 ridiculously hard upper body calisthenics workouts for you to go out and smash.

And the best part…

…Non of them are overly complex.

Because if you think about it, all you’re really doing is practicing the same basic movement patterns over and over again.

The only real difference is both the intensity and loading of the exercises for each specific workout.

Now, hopefully, this blog post has given you more than enough to think about when planning your next workout.

And I guarantee that if you make one or more of these workouts a habit, then you’ll start seeing incredible results a lot sooner than you think.

However, these workouts are still only a small piece of the puzzle. And there are in fact, dozens, if not hundreds more calisthenics workouts you can experiment with to get the most bang for your buck.

Which brings me to the Bar Brothers Program

Now, without going into too much detail. Bar Brothers is a unique, yet highly effective calisthenics program that goes way beyond the limits of just basic calisthenics.

In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that once you have this program at your disposal. You’ll have everything you’ll ever need to slingshot your calisthenics skills to the next level and beyond.

I’m not going to hype this up or oversell it, because, to be honest, it’s not really my style. I’d much rather you just check it out for yourself to see if it’s the right fit for your goals.

So with that said, here’s the video link to check out the Bar Brothers Official Website.