Best Gym exercises for upper body...

You would lose the bet. With high reps they will develop endurance not size.

Fine, but you did not get a huge back from paddling. It came from something else, possibly genetics.

i think the term 'huge' is overstating, but surfboard paddling does wonderful things for back development. and surfers, a a rule tend to have very good backs. like swimmers, and often better.

most don't knee paddle anymore, because they aren't luddite longboarders ...

however, i found that when i started weightlifting, after years of surfing (and swimming etc.) that my back was WAY ahead of other bodyparts. 15 bw chinups was not a problem, and I could do a lot on lat pulldowns as well.

while genetics help in ALL muscle development (whether from surfing or lifting), it is a fact that surfing/paddling can do a lot for back development.

although i think the arnold comparison was probably a bit of hyperbole. :l

RE/

I doubt it.

The back size went away when I quit surfing.

I did some treatment on a surfer a couple months ago. For someone who didn't go to the gym often, his back was quite developed.

Have you ever looked at a body-builder's workout routine? They involve high repetitions; much higher than a weight-lifter's, who train for strength, not size.

What do you consider high reps?

I used to be a bodybuilder, and I lifted as heavy as I could. Now, I'm more into biking, so I've upped the reps and dropped the weight.

FWIW, and not wishing to butt in, 30+ per set is high reps as far as I'm concerned.

Three or more sets of 15 or more. I know somebody who did body-building, and he did 5 sets of 20 for most of his exercises.

RE/

When I was surfing, I'd say somewhere up in the thousands per 'workout'.

Paddle a mile or more out to the reef, catch a wave, paddle back out pushing through a set or two, sit there in the lineup thinking your arms are totally dead and there's no way in the world you could possibly take a single stroke...then somebody yells 'Outsiiiide', you see this thing that looks roughly the size of a 40-story building coming towards you...and your arms just start paddling....way, way, way beyond what you ever imagined total muscle failure was....

You do that repeatedly for 3-4 hours, then you paddle the mile or more back to shore...

I never had any muscles before surfing and as soon as I stopped, I didn't have muscles anymore...but while I was surfing, the muscles involved in paddling got *really* big.

.....and he certainly didn't gain much mass.