Another tough metabolic total body strength workout from Heather Robertson. As the title indicates, Total Body // Strength & Cardio HIIT Workout is a cardio + strength workout but there is more metabolic strength work than there is cardio. But due to the nature of the exercises, nearly every exercise you do in this workout will spike your heart rate (except the skull crusher crunch (#12 below)–that worked me well, but my heart rate did drop). I was working hard! Every exercise in this workout works multiple muscle groups. Heather has some unique and challenging compound exercises in this workout. Since you do every exercise 3 times before moving on to the next exercise, I was able to play with my weight choices. The first time I did an exercise I challenged myself with something a little heavier than I normally would chose, so you will see in the breakdown below that I sometimes used multiple weights for one exercise. But that’s okay–I feel like I really worked my muscles well if I had to drop to a lighter dumbbell the 2nd or 3rd set. Due to the length of this workout, I used one of Heather’s short 10 minute workouts as a finisher: Low Impact Tabata Workout. Between the two workouts I burned 405 calories.
This workout is done interval style: each exercise is done for 40 seconds followed by 20 seconds of rest. As noted above, you will do 3 sets of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. There is a timer in the lower right hand corner of the screen counting down the intervals and recoveries. During the recoveries, Heather previews the next exercise.
Total Body // Strength & Cardio HIIT Workout is 44:07; 3 minute warm up and 3:30 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells and a fitness mat. Heather is using 5 and 10 pound dumbbells. Below the video it says she used 10 and 15 pound dumbbells but that seemed a little unrealistic for some of the exercises (plus in the video it looks like she is using 5 pound dumbbells). Then I checked her Facebook page and she acknowledged it was a typo. The weights listed below are what I used.
- Squat & press (squat while holding DBs at shoulders, when you stand, pivot to one side while doing a single arm overhead press, alternate arms with a squat between each side) (16.5# DBs for first set, 15# DBs for 2nd & 3rd set)
- Repeat #1 two more times
- Deadlift lunge & curl (one deadlift + one reverse lunge with bicep curl while in lunge, alternate legs when lunging) (16.5# DBs)
- Repeat #3 two more times
- Sumo & raise (one sumo squat while holding DBs together between legs, at top of squat, do a straight arm front raise, bringing DBs all the way overhead) (one 25# DB)
- Repeat #5 two more times.
- Pop squat (squat jacks, reaching one hand to floor while in squat)
- Repeat #7 two more times
- 30 second rest
- Side lunge & row (alternating side lunges, between each lunge do one bent over double arm row) (25# DBs for first set, 20# DBs for 2nd & 3rd set)
- Repeat #10 two more times
- Skull crusher crunch (lay on back on mat, knees bent and feet on mat, extend arms/DBs to ceiling, bend elbows bringing DBs to ears, do one crunch in this position, extend arms to ceiling again) (10# DBs for sets 1 & 2, 8# DBs for 3rd set)
- Repeat #12 two more times
- Skate & press (lateral skaters, reach arms/DBs to floor while in cross-back/curtsy lunge and reach arms/DBs overhead when changing sides) (5# DBs)
- Repeat #14 two more times
- Burpee squat (do one full squat holding DBs at sides + one plank burpee-no push up) (15# DBs)
- Repeat #16 two more times
- 30 second rest
- Plank row & push up (one renegade row each arm + one push up) (25# DBs)
- Repeat #19 two more times
- Curtsy & raise (alternating curtsy lunges, do one straight arm side raise when changing sides) (6# DBs)
- Repeat #21 two more times
- Hi-low swing (kettlebell swing (using a dumbbell) raising DB overhead alternated with a squat swing, raising DB to chest level) (one 16.5# DB)
- Repeat #23 two more times
- Deadlift jacks (hold one DB in both hands, do one deadlift + one jumping jack, pushing DB overhead) (one 10# DB)
- Repeat #25 two more times
For more info on Heather Robertson’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
