30 Min BLAZING CARDIO HIIT Workout / Dumbbells | EPIC II – Day 26

30 Min Blazing Cardio HIIT Workout / Dumbbells is Day 26 in Caroline Girvan‘s EPIC II program. This is a tough metabolic HIIT workout (high intensity interval training). You use dumbbells to increase the intensity of the exercises. Because you are doing every exercise fast, you cannot use heavy dumbbells. Caroline used 13 pound dumbbells for everything which is impressive but, having done a lot of her workouts, it is light for her. I came to this workout with a full array of dumbbells lined up in front of me–5 pounds to 13 pounds all in one pound increments. I was never in my peak heart rate zone but I was very high in my cardio heart rate zone and I definitely felt like I was working hard. I used Caroline’s 9 minute Cardio & HIIT warm up and, between the warm up and this workout, I burned 318 calories.

Even though this is supposed to be more of a cardio workout, Caroline does hit every muscle group in your body so it is also a total body strength workout. Even with lighter weights my muscles were burning out due to the speed of the reps. Caroline had to take a few personal breaks mid interval to thaw her muscles out. I was able to keep all of the exercises up the full interval even when it burned but, again, I did not use my 13 pound dumbbells for every single exercise like Caroline did. This is not one of Caroline’s low impact workouts. Also, unlike in her more recent workouts, she does not show low impact alternatives for the jumps. But there aren’t a lot of them and if you have done any type of low impact workout in the past, it should be pretty easy for you to figure how to modify.

30 Min Blazing Cardio HIIT Workout / Dumbbells is 36:52 minutes; 1:30 minute intro, no warm up and 4:30 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells and fitness mat. Caroline is using 6kg/13 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used. This workout is done interval style: 30 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of recovery. There is a timer in the upper right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. Caroline previews the next exercise during the recovery. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage.

1. Maker (start in plank, do one renegade row each arm, jump feet into DBs so you are in squat, do a double arm bicep curl, stand w/ DBs at shoulders, do one overhead press, squat and place DBs on the floor, jump feet back to plank and do one push up) (13# DBs)
2. Repeat #1
3. Lateral lunge to punch (hold one DB in one hand at shoulder, do one stationary side lunge, as you straighten do one front punch) (6# DBs)
4. Repeat #3 on other side of body
5. Skier (with legs close together and a DB in each hand, squat while swinging arms down and behind you, when you stand, swing arms up to shoulder level) (13# DBs)
6. Staggered squat (single leg squat holding DBs at shoulders) (13# DBs)
7. Repeat #6 on other side of body
8. Lateral to frontal raise (alternate straight arm side raises with straight arm front raises) (6# DBs)
9. Repeat #8
10. Repeat #5
11. 1.5 squat to x2 press (w/ DBs at shoulders lower into full squat, raise halfway, lower into full squat, raise all the way then do 2 overhead presses) (10# DBs)
12. Repeat #11
13. Bent over rows (13# DBs)
14. Repeat #13
15. Repeat #5
16. Lunge to snatch (hold one DB in one hand, legs are wide, lunge pivot to side, and when you pivot back to face front, pull DB up upright row fashion until you get to shoulder level then flip elbow so weight of DB is in palm and do a single arm overhead press) (one 13# DB)
17. Repeat #16 on other side of body
18. Around the world (with palms facing forward and hands in front of thighs, keeping arms straight, raise DBs out to sides then overhead, lower DBs out to sides and back in front of thighs) (6# DBs)
19. Repeat #18
20. Repeat #5
21. x2 DB push up burpee (hold one DB in each hand, place DBs on floor, jump feet back to plank, do one push up, jump feet back in to DBs, stand and do one double arm kettlebell swing with the DBs, raising the DBs overhead at top of swing) (13# DBs)
22. Repeat #21
23. Close squat to single arm overhead press (hold one DB in one hand at shoulder, do one narrow squat, when you stand do one single arm overhead press) (one 10# DB)
24. Repeat #23 on other side of body
25. Repeat #5
26. Reverse lunge to knee pass (hold one DB in one hand, do a reverse lunge into front knee raise, when knee is raised, pass DB under thigh to other hand) (one 10# DB)
27. Repeat #26 on other side of body
28. Arnold press (10# DBs)
29. Repeat #28
30. Repeat #5
31. Sumo to sumo RDL (hold DBs in front of chest, do one sumo squat then lower DBs in front of you to do one sump deadlift) (13# DBs)
32. Repeat #31
33. Double arm tricep kickbacks (7# DBs)
34. Repeat #33
35. Repeat #5
36. Same leg lunge to squat (alternate one squat + one reverse lunge) (10# DBs)
37. Repeat #36 on other side of body
38. Hammer curls (10# DBs)
39. Repeat #38

Finisher: (30 seconds)

1. Alt lunge to lateral raise (step back into reverse lunge and hold, do one double arm side raise, alternate legs) (5# DBs)

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