15 Min BODYWEIGHT BACK and CORE WORKOUT at Home | No Weights

15 Min Bodyweight Back & Core Workout is a tough body weight strength workout from Caroline Girvan. I used this as a finisher after doing her Beastmode Back & Biceps, so my back was already fatigued. This workout definitely finished me off. Much more brutal than I expected it to be. I attribute that to the staple exercise: lat pull in. Since the lat pull in is the staple exercise it is performed every other exercise–eight times total in the course of the workout. I was struggling by the end of this workout. I think Caroline was, too, but to be honest, I didn’t really look at the TV much during the intervals. All of the exercises are done with your eyes cast down and looking up will not only mess up your form but also you might injure yourself. Plus, I was working too hard! A few times near the end when I did look up to check how much time was left in an interval, Caroline appeared to be taking long pauses between reps. And the intervals are long: 50 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. This is definitely a tough and thorough finisher workout for your upper body.

Though this is a body weight workout, you do need some sort of sliding device. Caroline has a wood floor so she uses a towel. I have a gym floor so nothing works on it. I do own a large rug I bought specifically for sliding devices (Cathe Friedrich uses sliding devices a lot and for many years I did primarily her workouts), so I used plastic sliders on the rug. If you have a rug/carpet you can also use paper plates or frisbees. Caroline also shows an option of using an ab roller if you have one of those.

15 Min Bodyweight Back & Core Workout is 19:05 minutes; 1:30 intro, no warm up and 2 minute stretch. Equipment: fitness mat and a towel, sliders or ab roller. There is a timer in the upper left hand side of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recovery Caroline previews the next exercise.

1. Lat pull in (kneel on mat with towel or sliders or ab roller on floor in front of you, slide/roll upper body out then using your core and back/lats, pull body back in to start)
2. Superman
3. Repeat #1
4. Reverse snow angel (lay on belly with arms extended in front of you, raise head/chest as arms flow out to side and behind you, return to start)
5. Repeat #1
6. Lat pull down (lay on belly with arms extended in front of you, raise head/chest and pull arms down to sides, bending elbows and pulling elbows into ribs, return to start)
7. Repeat #1
8. Scapular push up (in straight arm plank, do scapular retractions, lowering chest while keeping arms straight and bringing shoulder blades together then round spine)
9. Repeat #1
10. Rear delt raise (palms down) (lay on belly with arms extended to sides in a T w/ palms facing floor, raise and lower arms)
11. Repeat #1
12. Plank alt row (with pulse) (in straight arm plank, pull one elbow up in a row, pulsing elbow up once higher than your back, alternate arms)
13. Repeat #1
14. Hips up & down (1 second hold) (alternate between elbow plank and dolphin pose, holding briefly in each position)
15. Repeat #1

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