Sarina Pani became an inspiration for every female by winning the coveted title of ‘The International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) Pro’ at the 2021 International Health, Sports & Fitness Festival (IHFF). She has also won the Fit Factor Female Fitness Model and Beach Body Female competition last year.
According to Sarina, the Pune-based Fittr Nutrition and Training coach “It’s very important for women to train their upper body along with the lower body despite what many people would say don’t train your upper body you will look bulky, it won’t give you huge bulky oversized muscles. Strengthening can help improve posture, athletic performance, confidence with everyday tasks, and decrease age-related atrophy.”
Sarina Pani’s top 5 exercises to build a strong upper body are :
Pull-ups:
It’s a challenging upper body exercise where you lift your body until your chin is above the bar. It’s a hard exercise to execute. completing a pull-up requires the intense engagement of nearly every muscle in your upper body
- Stand under a pull-up bar grab the bar place your arms slightly more than the shoulder-width apart and pull yourself by lifting your feet completely away from the floor.
- If you are a beginner start with dead hang by holding the bar and hanging for a few seconds. Progress to negative pull-ups in which you will jump to the top of the pull-up bar and then slowly lower yourself down to mimic half of the pull-up
Band assisted pull-ups: get a heavy resistance band put on foot through the band use a heavier resistance band then work your way to a lighter one
Tips for pull-ups:
1. Pretend you are driving your elbows into the ground
2. look up at the ceiling if you hunch your shoulders to help them up
3. Pretend to bend the bar to get a better arm path and feel your back more
4. control the eccentric part of the movement to avoid swinging.
Push-ups:
Primarily targets arms, triceps, and shoulders This is a full-body workout you don’t need any equipment for this. Pushups use the body’s weight against gravity to strengthen muscles.
Push progression (4 stages)
1-Wall Push-ups! Arms straight, elbows in, hands chest level. Hold when you get close to the wall and come back up.
2-Inclined Knee Push-ups! Find a raised surface and add step one this time to focus on keeping your core contracted (tight). Hold at the bottom and come back up.
3-Modified push-ups! This is the same as above except this time your hands are on the floor! Breathe in on the way down and exhale on the way up.
4-Push up! Hands straight, elbows in, hands chest level. Breathe in on the way down and out on the way up! Keep progressing daily or weekly until you get it right
Overhead shoulder press:
Works on your pectorals(chest), deltoids(shoulders), triceps (arms), traps(upper back ), core Overhead press is simply a movement in which resistance is pushed above the head. you can do this in a variety of ways like using: both hands simultaneously one hand at a time a single barbell held by both hands one free weight in each hand.
Bench dips:
It’s a bodyweight exercise primarily targeting the triceps and also hits your chest and anterior deltoid or the front part of your shoulder. It only requires an elevated surface like a bench step or stair.
To perform it sit down on a bench, hands next to your thighs walk your feet out and extend your feet out and extend your legs lifting your bottom off the bench and holding there with extended arms hinging at the elbow lower your body down as far as you can go until your arms form a 90-degree angle Push up thru your palms back to start.
Concentration curls:
It can be done in a seated position; this is an isolation curl meant to be performed deliberately in a slow and controlled manner. Press your elbow into your knee take 2 seconds on the concentric phase of the lift and 4 seconds on the eccentric phase of the lift.
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