30 Minutes to Fitness: Muscle Up/Lift 2B Fit

Kelly Coffey-Meyer just came out with 2 new workouts in her 30 Minutes to Fitness series: Home Gym Intervals and Muscle Up/Lift 2B Fit. I pre-ordered them both and did them as soon as I received them (I was actually out of town when they arrived, so I didn’t get to do them as soon as they actually arrived, but I did them as soon as I was home and able!). Muscle Up/Lift 2B Fit is Kelly’s first heavy strength workout (that I am aware of at least and I own almost all of her DVDs). The closest to it is Weights, but you use even heavier dumbbells in this one than you do in Weights. If you lift heavy in these workouts, they are actually pretty tough. They are done circuit fashion and opposing muscle groups are superset–so you are basically going non-stop and your heart will really be pumping if you are using heavy enough dumbbells. As always, there are two workouts that can be used as split series workouts, or you can use the premix that combines them for a full body workout, or you can use the other premixes to separate the muscle groups differently (and do different split series workouts). For each muscle group you do 3 exercises, each exercise is done twice and for most of the exercises you do 8 reps. Now, there is one exception to this. The first two back/chest supersets. You do those exercises 3 times. Every other exercise is only done twice. And the only exercises that are done more than 8 reps are some core moves (core is superset with shoulders) and some of the lower body exercises. In addition there is a Bonus Abs that is pretty unique and tough.

The first time I did these workouts I did the premix that combined both workouts plus the abs. It was an excellent total body workout–and tough! I am feeling it! I really love this DVD and can see using it in may ways in the future. I feel like she did an excellent job of hitting all of the muscle groups in a very well rounded way. What I also liked about this workout is that Kelly was also really challenging herself–you could tell that she was getting winded by her own workout! I usually lift as heavy or even heavier than most trainers in workout DVDs I do, but Kelly used 20s on one of the bicep exercises and I didn’t even attempt to go that heavy for that particular exercise! I used 15s! Other than that exercise I used the same dumbbells as Kelly for every exercise… I think. She shared the poundage of all of her dumbbells except her heaviest one. It didn’t look much bigger than her 20s so I am assuming it was 25 pound dumbbells and if that is the case, then I used the same weights as she did for everything except one bicep exercise. But if it was heavier than 25, she blew me away on a lot of exercises! I used 25, 20, 15 and 10 pound dumbbells. The 10 pound dumbbells were only used for shoulder work and the 15 pound dumbbells were only used for for biceps and triceps. The 25 and 20s were used for chest, back, lower body, shoulders, biceps and triceps. There were 3 exercisers with Kelly, one man and two women. Kelly and the man used a weight bench and the two women used steps. I used my weight bench; if you use a step then put a mat on it to pad it. I listed weights below with each exercises; these are the weights I used.

Workout #1 (Chest, Back, Shoulders & Core) is 29 minutes long; 4 minute warm up, 23 minute training time and 2 minute stretch

Chest/Back: Double arm rows with palms facing up (20#)/bench press (25#) (3 sets, 8 reps); one arm lawnmower rows (25#)/chest flys (25#)(3 sets, 8 reps); pullovers(25#)/push ups (toes) (2 sets/8 reps). Shoulders/Core: Arnold press (20#)/pull legs in and out while on bench and leaning back (2 sets, 8 reps shoulders/16 reps core); lateral raises (10#)/boxer toe touches on bench (2 sets, 8 reps shoulders/16 reps core); rear delt flys (10#)/supermans on bench (2 sets, 8 reps).

Workout # 2 (Lower Body, Biceps & Triceps) is 30 minutes long; 4:30 minute warm up, 23:30 training time and 2 minute stretch

Lower Body: sumo squats (25#)/bridges (25#) (2 sets, 8 reps sumo squats/16 reps bridges); front lunges (20#)/straight leg deadlifts (25#) (2 sets, 8 reps); curtsey squats (20#)/frog squats (no weight) (2 sets/ 8 reps curtsey squats/16 reps frog squats). Biceps/Triceps: flip curls (15#)/pledge curls (15#)/skull crushers (15#) (2 sets/4 reps flip curls/4 reps pledge curls/8 reps skull crushers); seated side curls (15#)/overhead tricep extensions (20#) (2 sets/8 reps); hammer curls (15#)/ tricep kickbacks (15#) (2 sets/8 reps)

Bonus Abs is 15 minutes long. Bonus abs is a tabata core workout. Though she uses the tabata principle it is a little different from a true tabata circuit. Each exercise is done 4 times. Each time the exercise is done it is done for 30 seconds with a 10 second rest–so a full round of one exercise (done 4 times) is 2:40 minutes long. There are 5 exercises. 1. sit on mat and lean back, legs slightly bent in front of you; quickly touch opposite toes. 2. get into plank; extended planks (raising opposite leg and arm–keep alternating). 3. full sit up into partial reverse plank (at top of sit up, put hands next to bottom and push body up–hovering for a second before lowering body and doing full sit up. 4. frog leg crunches. 5. plank sit outs.

Premixes:

Full Body Workout (both workouts + abs) 67 minutes

Shorter Full Body Workout (2 sets of all exercises) 49 minutes

Shoulders, Arms & Abs 39 minutes

Chest & Back 19 minutes

Legs/Glutes 19 minutes

Quick Superset Fix 1 37 minutes

Quick Superset Fix 2 35 minutes

Muscle Up First Set Pump 29 minutes