CoffeyFit Raw: Upper Body Blast

***Update: Kelly has removed all of the Raw workouts lI reviewed from YouTube. I am sure they are still available on her Raw streaming site but that is not free.***

Upper Body Blast is the second of Kelly Coffey-Meyer‘s CoffeyFit Raw workouts I’ve done. The first one I did was Lower Body & Kettlebells. That one was excellent and I loved it. Since that one is 25 minutes long and this one is 30 minutes long I was very interested in how they might work together for an hour long total body strength + cardio workout. Having done Upper Body Blast this morning, I think that pairing them together is an excellent idea and one I will definitely be doing.

Upper Body Blast is a fast paced upper body strength workout. You do 4 sets of each exercise, and each exercise is done for 30 seconds w/ 10 seconds of rest. This was a tough workout. Kelly suggests going heavier to work on strength; she says she is working on strength and endurance. Due to the set up (only 10 seconds of rest between sets), this can’t really be anything else but an endurance level workout. You cannot lift heavy because 10 seconds isn’t sufficient time for your muscles to rest between sets–for strength purposes that is. 10 seconds is fine for endurance tho. I used the same dumbbell/barbell weights Kelly did for most of the exercises and it really fried my upper body. I was a little surprised that her barbell was only 25 pounds until I saw the speed at which she was doing chest presses. I had my barbell set up at 35 pounds. I knew in advance that you only got 10 seconds of recovery so I knew I couldn’t go heavy but 35 pounds wore me out a lot quicker than I expected and I ended up dropping to 25 pounds like Kelly. However, I did return my barbell to 35 pounds for the back rows. She also supersets exercises. You do chest and shoulder exercises first and end with back and tricep work. In the middle of the workout tho, you do biceps w/ cardio. So this workout even elevates your heart rate into the cardio zone. Pretty excellent workout.

Just like in Lower Body & Kettlebells this is done in Kelly’s basement. She gives you no warm up and hardly any stretch. So if you need more than that you are on your own. I did this workout on a Sunday so I finished it off with yoga. The yoga I did had a lot of down dogs held for a long time–my arms were shaking violently during the down dogs in the beginning, thanks to Kelly! In the future, when I combine this workout with Lower Body & Kettlebells, I will do Upper Body Blast first, follow it with Lower Body & Kettlebells and tack on a stretch from one of Cathe‘s workouts (Flex Train or Super Cuts always work well) and that will give me an hour long workout.

Upper Body Blast is 30:30 minutes long: 30 second intro, no warm up and 20 second stretch. She uses a 25 pound barbell and 3 sets of dumbbells: 15, 12 and 10. You also need a bench or step. Below I listed the weights Kelly uses for each exercise. If I used a different weight, I noted that below. The very first exercise is done at a very fast pace, however the remainder of the exercises are done at a more controlled pace.

1. Chest press (25#BB all 4 sets) (she does these reps fast)
2. Shoulder press, set 1 (25# BB) (speed is more controlled)
3. Shoulder press, set 2 (12# DBs)
4. Shoulder press, set 3 & 4 (Kelly dropped to 10# DBs, I stayed with 12# DBs)
5. Chest flys, set 1 (15# DBs)
6. Chest flys, set 2, 3 & 4 (Kelly dropped to 12# DBs, I stayed with 15# DBs)
7. Bent arm lateral raises, set 1 (Kelly used 12# DBs, I used 10# DBs)
8. Bent arm lateral raises, set 2, 3 & 4 (10# DBs)
9. Skaters w/ bicep curls (10# DBs all 4 sets)
10. Squat and bicep curl while still in squat and as you stand, explode into a jump (Kelly used 10# DBs all 4 sets, I used 12# DBs)
11. Underhand back rows (Kelly used 25# BB all 4 sets, I used 35# BB)
12. Tricep dips off bench (4 sets)
13. Seated reverse flys (12# DBs all 4 sets)
14. Skull crushers (10# all 4 sets)
15. Abs: sit on bench and lean back w/ hands on back of bench; pull knees in to chest then push back out (4 sets)

For more info on CoffeyFit Raw and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.

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