Legendary Leg Workout / No Frills Leg Day is day 48 in Caroline Girvan‘s EPIC II program and it is another tough strength workout. As usual, Caroline burned out my lower body. Every exercise in this workout is done for a full minute. Caroline does everything at a slow and controlled pace so I never got more than 13 reps out of an interval–usually 10-12 reps. There is a lot of pulsing at the bottom of a move which is where the real burnout happens. I had to drop to lighter dumbbells for some of the pulses during the deadlifts in order to maintain proper form. During some of the pulsing intervals Caroline starts the pulses late. However, everything is cued visually and audibly on the screen so you do not have to follow what Caroline is doing. I followed the screen prompts so sometimes I was pulsing when Caroline was still doing the full range of the exercise. A tough, thorough lower body strength workout. I needed every single one of those 30 second recoveries! My legs are still singing!
This workout is done interval style: each exercise is done for one minute followed by a 30 second recovery. There is a timer in the upper right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recovery, the next exercise is previewed in a small video in the upper left hand corner of the screen. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage. This workout is done to music with plenty of visual cues as well as “dings” to keep you on track. During the intro at the beginning of this workout Caroline goes over important form pointers for deadlifts.
Legendary Leg Workout / No Frills Leg Day is 55:28 minutes; 2:30 minute intro, no warm up and 4:30 minute stretch. I used Heather Robertson‘s Leg Day Warm Up. Equipment: dumbbells and a chair, bench or step. Caroline is using 12.5 kg dumbbells (27.6 pounds). The weights listed below are what I used. I used my square high step at 14 inches for the Bulgarian lunges.
All of the exercises below are done for 60 seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest.
- Full range front squat (DBs held at chest level in front of you) (20# DBs)
- Repeat #1
- 20 seconds full range front squat + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of front squat + 20 seconds full range front squat (20# DBs)
- 20 second pulsing at bottom of front squat + 20 seconds full range front squat + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of front squat (20# DBs)
- Static/stationary lunges (20# DBs)
- Repeat #5 with legs swapped
- 20 second full range static lunge + 20 seconds pulsing static lunge + 20 seconds full range static lunge (20# DBs)
- Repeat #7 with legs swapped
- 20 seconds pulsing static lunge + 20 seconds full range static lunge + 20 seconds pulsing static lunge (20# DBs)
- Repeat #9 with legs swapped
- Full range sumo squat (DBs held at chest level in front of you) (25# DBs)
- Repeat #11
- 20 seconds full range sumo squat + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of sumo squat + 20 seconds full range sumo squat (25# DBs)
- 20 second pulsing at bottom of sumo squat + 20 seconds full range sumo squat + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of sumo squat (25# DBs)
- Full range Bulgarian squat (back leg is elevated on chair or step or bench behind you; hold one DB in same side arm as front leg) (one 20# DB)
- Repeat #15 on other leg
- 20 second full range Bulgarian lunge + 20 seconds pulsing Bulgarian lunge + 20 seconds full range Bulgarian lunge (one 20# DB)
- Repeat #17 with legs swapped
- 20 seconds pulsing Bulgarian lunge + 20 seconds full range Bulgarian lunge + 20 seconds pulsing Bulgarian lunge (one 20# DB)
- Repeat #19 with legs swapped
- Romanian deadlift (35# DBs)
- Repeat #21
- 20 seconds full Romanian deadlift + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift + 20 seconds full Roman deadlift (30# DBs)
- 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift + 20 seconds full Roman deadlift + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift (20# DBs)
- Staggered deadlift (single leg deadlift, non-working leg is in kickstand position behind you) (one 30# DB)
- Repeat #25 on other leg
- 20 seconds full staggered deadlift + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift + 20 seconds full staggered deadlift (one 30# DB)
- Repeat #27 on other leg
- 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift + 20 seconds full staggered deadlift + 20 seconds pulsing at bottom of deadlift (one 20# DB)
- Repeat #29 on other leg
Finisher: there is no rest/recovery between exercises–you are going for 2:30 minutes straight, but bodyweight, no dumbbells.
- Alternate Bulgarian lunge with single lead deadlift (back leg remains elevated throughout) (no DBs) (60 seconds)
- Repeat #1 on other leg
- Sumo pulse squats (30 seconds)
For more info on Caroline Girvan’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
