A Men's Upper Body Only Workout at Home With Dumbbells

Your body has many muscles, but those of your upper body rank high in terms of importance, particularly if you're an athlete. After all, the muscles of your shoulders, arms, back and chest play integral roles in the acts of throwing, catching and swinging, among other movements. While working out at home can limit your exercise selection, it's important to balance your training by performing an equal number of pushing and pulling exercises.

  1. Back

    • Your back muscles -- including the latissimus dorsi, rhomboids and levator scapulae -- enable many essential movements such as standing and picking up objects. These muscles also help you perform pulling motions and strengthening your back can help you avoid back pain. Dumbbell exercises that can strengthen your back muscles include bent-over rows, upright rows and dumbbell shrugs.

    Shoulders

    • Whether you like to throw footballs or bowling balls in your spare time, your shoulder muscles play a significant role in your success. The muscles in your shoulders help to rotate your arms and move them backward, forward as well as toward and away from your body. To work your shoulders with dumbbells at home, you can perform the overhead press, front raises and lateral raises.

    Chest

    • As the website Expert Boxing points out, the muscles of your chest act as "upper body core muscles" because they unite the strength of your shoulders, back and arms into one powerful force. Your chest muscles also provide the force to bring your arms in front of your body and push things away from you. Working your chest at home will require a weight bench or similar object. On the bench, you can perform the dumbbell bench press, incline press and dumbbell fly.

    Arms

    • The biceps and triceps of your upper arm work to move your arms at the wrist and elbow joints. Your biceps help bend your arms, while your triceps straighten them out. Work your biceps with exercises such as the dumbbell curl and reverse curl; you can strengthen your triceps with dumbbell kickbacks, overhead presses and skullcrushers, if you have a bench.