So far I’ve focused on the lower body and cardio YouTube workouts but I decided that I should sample some of the upper body workouts, too, since they could be nice finishers for my longer upper body and total body workouts. So, this morning was Cathe Live: Low Impact Cardio & Strength and I finished it off with Popsugar‘s Strapless Dress Arm Workout and Reboot Your Butt. So together, they were a nice 20 minute finisher that hit both my upper and lower body.
I was actually rather impressed with this workout. I’m not sure why I expected less from Anna Renderer, but as usual, she put together a quick yet effective workout that targets primarily the arms and shoulders–what you would see in a strapless dress. This workout is actually a tiny bit longer than 10 minutes–11 minutes. The workout itself is 10 minutes but once the 10 minute ends and timer runs out, Anna continues on for another minute stretching out your upper body. And I was glad for that!
The key, as usual, to this and any other workout, is weight selection. Anna used only 5 pound weights. She had two exercisers with her. One also used 5 pounds weights and the other was showing the beginner modifications to the exercises so she used no weights or 3 pound weights. However, I of course, used a much larger selection: 5s, 8s, 12s and 15s.
Strapless Dress Arm Workout is 11 minutes long; 30 second warm up of arm circles and 1 minute stretch. You need dumbbells and a mat. Anna usse 5 pounds for everything so the dumbbell weights listed below are what I used. Anna incorporates lower body and core into this workout through balance challenges and other static positions while doing the upper body exercise; however, if you are using the proper weights, I don’t think the balance challenges (1, 2 and 3 below, where you are standing on one leg) are necessary for this workout to be an effective finisher.
Exercises:
- Scarecrows standing on one leg; 5# DBs
- Alternating overhead shoulder press standing on one leg; 12# DBs
- Double arm tricep kickbacks standing on one leg; 8# DBs
- Horizontal bicep curls in static lunge (hold arms straight out to sides and curl dumbbells in and out); 8# DBs
- Chest Fly + Pull Over (laying on back w/ feet bent and raised); 15# DBs
- Push up and Rotate (holding DBs, do a push up, then rotate into side plank and raised DB to ceiling; alternate sides); 12# DBs
- Lying W (no DBs; lay on stomach w/ arms to sides in goal post/90 degrees and forehead on mat; raise and lower arms, keeping them in goal post)
- Side plank and shoulder raise (get in modified side plank, holding one DB in top arm; raise and lower DB straight in front of you); 8# DB
For more info on Popsugar and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
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