Gym Style Chest and Triceps

Gym Style Chest and Triceps is a strength workout from Cathe’s Hardcore series. There are 3 Gym Style workouts (Gym Style Chest & Triceps, Gym Style Legs, and Gym Style Back, Shoulders & Biceps) and together they are a split series. The difference between this split series and Cathe’s other split series, is that they are sold separately—meaning the 3 separate workouts are NOT all on the same DVD. Each can be purchased individually, so I will review them that way. However, the three workouts were designed to be used together, so I will be putting this little paragraph at the beginning of each review. The only other “split” workouts Cathe puts out separately are her lower body workouts (Lower Body Blast, Butts and Guts, Legs and Glutes) but they have no corresponding upper body splits connected with them, so they don’t really count (though you can obviously substitute any of her lower body workouts for the lower body workout that comes with a split series). On to the workout…

Gym Style Chest and Triceps is 48 minutes long and holy cow, it is tough. It seems I might have inadvertently created the schedule to get through all of my new Cathe strength workouts from the easier workouts to hardest (none of Cathe’s workouts are “easy” btw–the majority of them are advanced, but some of them are more advanced than others)—because this was hard. My arms are burning. Bad. It’s too early to know how severe the DOMS will be, but I am a little worried I will not be able to move my upper body. Before I get into the actual breakdown, this workout needs some build up. After the warm up (which consists of dynamic movements to warm up the chest and triceps), Cathe launches you into 72 push ups. No that is not a typo. 72. Believe it or not, I have done this before with another trainer. Jari Love. In fact, Jari did her 72 push up fun-time in almost the same way—drop sets. Cathe did her drop sets slightly different. As the set-reps got shorter, the tempo slows down, so the break you are anticipating with less push ups isn’t much of a break. First it slows to a 2-count up an 2 count down, then to a 4 count up and a 4 count down for the last two sets. You do 8 sets of push ups. The first set is 16 reps and you continue to subtract 2 push ups for each set. And the break you get between is very short. BTW—that goes for the whole workout. This is some fairly fast-paced circuit training with short breaks.

So now your upper body is burning when she launches you into a lot of chest presses and chest flys. Because of this, I was only able to use moderately heavy weights. I used the same weights as Cathe, but I noticed that even she wasn’t lifting as heavy as she usually does either (only someone who has done almost every strength workout she has created would know how heavy Cathe usually lifts!). I knew the pound breakdown that Cathe used before I did the workout, so I had (foolishly) assumed I would be using heavier weights than her. Silly me. I really should know better.

Once the chest work is finished, Cathe decides to begin tricep work in a similar fashion with a “warm up” tricep dip series off the step. You warm up with 24 tricep dips. Normally 24 tricep dips is not that big of a deal for me, but after the brutal chest section, I felt them immediately! Overall it is a fairly fast paced workout. You do 2-3 sets of each exercise and other than the body weight exercises, you do 10-12 reps.

***I have updated this review at the request of a reader with the weights I used the last time I did this workout.***

Chest and Triceps is 48 minutes long; 4 minute warm up, 40 minutes strength work and 4 minute stretch. Equipment needed: 10 inch step that inclines (club step w/ 3 risers each side), dumbbells, barbell and resistance/dynaband.

Chest (22 minutes):

Drop set push ups

Bench press with dumbbells (20# DBs)

Chest flys with dumbbells (20# DBs)

Incline chest press with dumbbells (20# DBs)

Incline chest flyes with dumbbells (20# DBs)

Close grip chest press with barbell (30# BB)

Triceps (18 minutes):

Tricep dips

Lying tricep extensions with dumbbells

Seated French press with dumbbell (one 20# DB)

Lying cross body tricep extension with dumbbells (one 8# DB)

Cross body tricep extensions with dynaband

Tricep kickbacks with dumbbells (10# DBs)

Tricep kickbacks with dynaband

There are two premixes: Timesaver 32 and Chest and Triceps Superset 31.