This workout is led by Dr. Sneha Desu, a medical doctor and fitness instructor. She created four 25-30 minute workouts specifically for women to do at home and this is one of them. I really liked it a lot and plan to do (and review) her other 3 workouts. This is a HIIT workout adaptable to all fitness levels. You use dumbbells and bodyweight work to elevate your heart rate. So even tho there is impact, you can easily modify any of it to more shallow hops or take the hop out all together. You can also vary your weight selection to vary intensity. Dr. Desu recommends and is using 1kg dumbbells. This is 2.2 pound dumbbells. I used 3, 5, 8 and 10 pound dumbbells for this workout and it did wear me out. As you can see by my dumbbell choices, that even tho this workout is classified as “upper body” you cannot lift heavy. It is too cardio focused for that. That’s not to say it isn’t going to hit your upper body nicely–it is–it just isn’t heavy strength training. I used it as a finisher for a total body strength workout this morning. It works well for that or to finish off an upper body strength workout. At 24 minutes you could even use it as a doubles workout.
HIIT Upper Body Workout is 24 minutes long; 1 minute intro, 2 minute warm up and no cool down/stretch. Dr. Desu has dumbbells, a mat and a step at what looks like 10 inches. Each exercise is done for 45 seconds w/ a 15 second recovery. There are 10 exercises. Once you complete the 10 exercises, you repeat them all. The dumbbell weights listed below are what I used for each exercise. Dr. Desu used the 1kg weights for everything. Dr. Desu also shows you all possible modifications for each exercise (both easier and harder modifications).
- DB forward + overhead press w/ shuffle/mummy kicks (3# DBs)
- 2 seal jacks + 2 half burpees (burpee w/ no push up) (5# DBs)
- DB squat and press jump (squat w/ DBs at shoulder and jump, pressing DBs overhead) (5# DBs)
- Moving plank (high plank to low plank)
- DB forward and diagonal punches + plyo jump lunges (in lunge, punch front, then to the side, then jump lunge; keep repeating) (5# DBs)
- Push ups
- DB bent over row to reverse fly jump (do a row followed by a rear delt fly–as you do the rear delt fly you will also jump) (10# DBs)
- DB Russian Twist to shoulder external rotation (do a Russian Twist to each side then in the middle, fly bent arms open) (5# DBs)
- DB bicep curls + ice skaters (8# DBs)
- 4 tricep dips + 4 kicks (do this on the step; when kicking you are in the high portion of tricep dip)
Repeat all exercises.
For more info on Stylecraze Fitness and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
