Upper-body strength training for athletes is one of the most undervalued pillars of athletic development—and one of the most misunderstood. Walk into almost any gym and you’ll see athletes loading up a bench press, cranking out a few sets, and calling it an upper body day. Meanwhile, the pulling muscles, the core stabilizers, and the movement patterns that actually drive sport performance go untrained.
Whether you’re an 8th grader trying to make the varsity squad or a 30-year-old weekend warrior competing in recreational leagues, your upper body is doing far more for your performance than you probably give it credit for. It’s absorbing contact, generating force through the arms and torso, stabilizing you under high-speed conditions, and transferring power between your lower body and whatever you’re trying to hit, throw, push, or control.
At Prepare for Performance, we build upper body strength with purpose. Every movement we program has to earn its place by delivering real, transferable athletic gains. In this guide, we’re breaking down the 5 best upper body strength movements for athletes — why they work, how to do them correctly, and what the science says about their role in performance and injury prevention.
Most athletes — and too many coaches — anchor athletic development conversations around the lower body. Vertical jump. Sprint speed. Hip power. And yes, those things matter enormously. But treating the upper body as an afterthought is a mistake that limits performance and increases injury risk.
A 2024 scoping review published in PMC examined the influence of upper body strength qualities on high-intensity running and jumping actions across multiple sports. Elite strength and conditioning coaches surveyed in the study expressed strong confidence in the role that upper body strength training plays in enhancing these performance actions. The research highlights that maximal upper body strength — not just core endurance or light stability work — is the appropriate target for athletes who want to generate and control force in competitive environments.
Think about what athletes actually need their upper body to do under pressure:
In all of these situations, the upper body is not just assisting — it’s actively producing and transmitting force. That’s why upper body strength training for athletes belongs at the center of any serious performance program, not tacked on at the end of leg day.
Research on youth resistance training published in PMC confirms that properly supervised strength training — including pressing and pulling movements — is safe and effective for athletes as young as elementary school age. The key variables are qualified coaching, proper technique, and age-appropriate loading.
Before we get into the movements, there’s a principle every athlete and coach needs to understand: the push-pull ratio. Your upper body strength program should develop both pressing (pushing) and pulling strength in roughly equal measure.
A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research analyzed 42 professional rugby players and found an ideal strength ratio of approximately 97.7% between their 1-rep max bench press and their 1-rep max pull-up. In other words, elite athletes who train correctly are nearly as strong pulling as they are pushing. When that balance breaks down — when pressing volume dominates without equivalent pulling work — shoulder injury risk climbs and overall athletic performance suffers.
Most recreational and youth athletes are dramatically push-dominant. They bench press. They do push-ups. They overhead press. But they rarely pull with the same volume, load, or intent. The result is a muscle imbalance around the shoulder joint that compromises mechanics, reduces force output, and creates a vulnerability for injury.
A well-designed upper body strength training program for athletes corrects this. The five movements below include 3 pushing variations and 2 pulling variations — all chosen for their load potential, sport transfer, and ability to be progressed over time.
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1. Floor Press |
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HOW TO PERFORM
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KEY BENEFITS
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The floor press is a foundational pressing movement that every athlete should have in their program at some point. Unlike the bench press, it eliminates the stretch reflex at the bottom of the movement — meaning you have to generate force from a dead stop, which directly develops the explosive starting strength that transfers to contact sports and explosive upper body actions.
For youth athletes who are still developing shoulder mobility and stability, the floor press is often the smarter entry point to heavy pressing than jumping straight to the bench. It’s also an excellent alternative for adult athletes managing shoulder discomfort, since the limited range of motion reduces stress on the anterior shoulder capsule.
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2. Z Press |
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HOW TO PERFORM
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KEY BENEFITS
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The Z press is one of the most honest movements in upper body strength training for athletes. When you remove the ability to use leg drive or shift your hips, you find out exactly how much real overhead pressing strength you have. For athletes who have been using body English and momentum to hit overhead press numbers, the Z press is a humbling but invaluable tool.
From a sport transfer standpoint, the demand for a rigid, upright torso under load directly mimics the postural requirements of athletic competition. Volleyball players hitting overhead, basketball players shooting or posting up, and combat sport athletes maintaining posture during grappling exchanges — all benefit from the strict positional strength the Z press builds.
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HOW TO PERFORM
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KEY BENEFITS
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Most sport movements are asymmetrical. You throw with one arm. You swing with a dominant side. You absorb contact from unpredictable angles. Training with bilateral movements only — both arms doing the same thing at the same time — leaves a gap in your development that the single-arm dumbbell bench press directly addresses.
For youth athletes still developing body awareness and movement control, the single-arm variation also provides a critical lesson in stabilization: the torso must stay neutral while one arm is working, which builds the anti-rotation core strength that underpins nearly every high-speed athletic action. Research on youth strength training consistently highlights the importance of developing stabilization alongside raw strength for long-term athletic development.
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HOW TO PERFORM
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KEY BENEFITS
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If the bench press is the king of upper body pressing, weighted chin-ups are the king of upper body pulling — and most athletes are dramatically undertrained in this movement. The neutral grip is preferred for athletes because it places the elbow in a more joint-friendly position compared to a supinated (underhand) or pronated (overhand) grip, reducing injury risk while still maximizing lat and upper back engagement.
Adding external load via a weight belt is how this movement becomes a true strength builder rather than a conditioning exercise. Once an athlete can perform 8-10 clean bodyweight reps, it’s time to add weight and drop the reps. This is the progression path that builds the kind of pulling strength that shows up in competition — not just in the gym.
For youth athletes who cannot yet perform a strict bodyweight chin-up, band-assisted or inverted row variations are excellent progressions that build the same movement pattern and muscle groups at an appropriate level of challenge.
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5. Pendlay Row |
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HOW TO PERFORM
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KEY BENEFITS
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The Pendlay row is a strict, explosive horizontal rowing variation that starts from a dead stop on the floor every single rep. This is what separates it from a standard barbell row, where athletes commonly use hip extension and momentum to swing the weight up. By returning the bar to the floor between reps, you remove the stretch reflex and force every pull to be generated from zero — which is exactly the kind of explosive pulling strength that transfers to sport.
From a sprint mechanics standpoint, powerful arm drive is directly correlated with sprint acceleration. Upper back strength supports the arm swing mechanics that drive running efficiency, meaning the Pendlay row isn’t just a “strength” exercise for athletes — it’s a speed exercise in disguise.
Knowing the five movements is one thing. Programming them intelligently is another. Here’s how we structure upper body strength training at Prepare for Performance for both youth and adult athletes:
The priority at this stage is movement quality, coordination, and building a foundation of strength. Load is secondary to technique.
At this stage, athletes can handle more load and complexity. The push-pull balance becomes a critical programming focus.
Advanced athletes can now use all five movements with significant loading and benefit from periodization — cycling through strength, power, and hypertrophy phases.
A critical note on youth athletes: Research published in the journal Health Science Reviews confirms that resistance training — including pressing and pulling movements — is safe for youth athletes of all ages provided there is qualified supervision, age-appropriate loading, and a focus on technique before intensity. The concern that lifting will damage growth plates is not supported by current evidence when proper protocols are followed.
This is the most common upper-body programming error we see. Athletes bench press 3–4 days per week and row once — if at all. The result is a push-dominant shoulder that is mechanically compromised and increasingly vulnerable to injury. For every set of pressing you do, match it with a set of pulling. It’s that simple.
Watch most athletes do a barbell row. Their hips shoot up, the bar swings, and momentum does half the work. The Pendlay row exists specifically to eliminate this problem. Dead-stop each rep. Reset your position. If you can’t pull it from a dead stop, you’re not as strong as you think you are — and that’s the most valuable information you can have.
Athletes with shoulder discomfort often abandon overhead pressing entirely. But in many cases, the discomfort comes from the imbalance — not from overhead pressing itself. The Z press, done with strict form and appropriate load, is one of the best tools for rebuilding overhead strength and shoulder stability in a controlled, joint-friendly way.
Upper-body strength training for athletes is not about impressing with a high bench press number. It’s about developing the full-spectrum strength — pushing, pulling, stabilizing, and transferring force — that makes you a more complete, more durable, and more dominant athlete.
These five movements — the floor press, Z press, single-arm dumbbell bench press, weighted neutral-grip chin-ups, and Pendlay row — deliver exactly that. They can be loaded heavy, progressed over time, and used across the entire athletic development spectrum from youth athletes to elite performers.
At Prepare for Performance, we build athletes from the ground up. That includes a lower body that produces power, a core that transfers it, and an upper body strong enough to control it and express it under the demands of competition.
Whether you’re a youth athlete looking to develop real strength for your sport or an adult competitor who wants to train with more purpose and precision, we’re here to help.
