20 Minute Bodyweight Leg Workout | Calisthenics Giant Sets

20 Minute Bodyweight Leg Workout | Calisthenics Giant Sets is a short but intense body weight strength workout from Caroline Girvan. During the month of December she created a lot of short workouts (most 20 minutes). I’m on the last week of my 7 Week Rotation and it is all body weight workouts, so this fit in perfectly. No equipment does not mean this is any easier than any of Caroline’s other intense lower body workouts. Caroline burned my legs out big time and over an hour later, I still feel it! What an excellent workout. You can use it on its own if you want to, you could use it as a finisher at the end of another lower body or total body workout or you can use it like I did today. I combined it with Naomi Joy‘s excellent upper body bodyweight strength workout for a total body workout session–sans dumbbells. Since this workout does not have a warm up, I also used Heather Robertson‘s 5 Minute Booty Burn as my warm up, which was perfect. BTW–all of the workouts mentioned in this review (including this one) are perfect travel workouts.

This workout is made up of giant sets, which is 4 exercises done back to back without any rest. Each exercise is done for 30 seconds. Between each giant set you get 20 seconds of rest. There is a timer in the upper left hand side of the screen counting down your intervals and recovery. During the recovery Caroline previews the next giant set. 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.

20 Minute Bodyweight Leg Workout | Calisthenics Giant Sets is 25 minutes; 40 second intro, no warm up and 2:30 minute stretch. Equipment: chair or high step, a yoga block and a mat. I used my square high step at 18 inches for the Bulgarian lunges, the step topper (4 inches) for elevated lunges and a set of dumbbells to raise my heels for heel elevated squats.

Giant Set 1:

1. Elevated lunge (stationary/static lunge, front foot is on yoga block)
2. Rear step lunge (reverse lunges, front foot is still elevated on yoga block)
3. Repeat #1 & 2

Repeat Giant Set 1 on other side of body

Giant Set 2:

1. Step out to elevated curtsy lunge (curtsy lunges w/ front foot elevated on yoga block)
2. Curtsy lunge to stand (lower into curtsy lunge and when you come out of lunge, front leg straightens and you raise back foot off floor, front foot is still elevated on yoga block)
3. Repeat #1 & 2

Repeat Giant Set 2 on other side of body

Giant Set 3:

1. Bulgarian lunge (back leg is elevated on chair)
2. Forward leaning Bulgarian lunge (same as #1 but lean torso forward over front leg)
3. Repeat #1 & 2

Repeat Giant Set 3 on other side of body

Giant Set 4:

1. Hamstring hold (one leg is extended on the mat, knee slightly bent, heel is elevated on yoga block, other leg is raised, lift hips and keep hips/glutes raised isometrically for 30 seconds)
2. Full range hamstring lift (same position as #1 but raise and lower hips)
3. Repeat #1 & 2

Repeat Giant Set 4 on other side of body

Giant Set Finisher:

1. Heel elevated squat hold (heels are elevated on yoga block, lower into a squat and hold isometrically)
2. Pulses (same position as #1, pulse glutes up and down at bottom of squat)
3. Half reps (same position as #1, lower to bottom of squat but only raise halfway)
4. Full range squat (heels still elevated)

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