EFFECTUAL Upper Body Workout with Dumbbells | EPIC Endgame Day 42

Effectual Upper Body Workout with Dumbbells is Day 42 in Caroline Girvan‘s EPIC Endgame program. This is a solid upper body strength workout and exactly what I needed this morning. My first workout in 2 weeks! As noted on my Current & Upcoming page, I have been on vacation. I had planned to do some resistance band workouts while on vacation and some body weight strength workouts, including one from this program. But life made that impossible. In spite of the fact I wore a mask for 15+ hours on airplanes, subways and a train to get to my daughter and grandson in England, I ended up sick anyway. Not COVID, thankfully. Which just goes to show you that even the masks aren’t 100% protection (the majority of the people on all modes of transportation did not wear a mask). I have no idea what initially struck me down but I became ill within days and was hacking my lungs up almost my entire vacation. (As a side note, it could have been my grandson who infected me. He is a one year old who goes to daycare and he had a runny nose and a cough the entire time I was there… I obviously did not wear a mask around the sweetie.) My husband took me to urgent care as soon as he picked me up from the airport. The doc said he does not know what started it but it had transformed into bronchitis. Anyway, with some meds in me, I was ready to exercise again this morning. For the next week it will be primarily strength workouts–no straight cardio so I don’t give myself a coughing fit. This workout was perfect for my first workout back. I took some cold medicine and cough syrup and made it through the workout without any problems. It felt so good to be challenging my muscles again after 2 weeks of doing nothing except walking (a lot) and picking up and holding a precious chonky one year old. And as I mentioned, this is an excellent and solid upper body strength workout. Caroline hits everything thoroughly in the upper body and I also really enjoyed the variety. You do repeat all of the exercise (some 3 times) but she breaks things up with the shoulder work and I really liked that.

All of the exercises in this workout are done interval style: 60 seconds of work followed by 20 seconds of rest. 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. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage.

Effectual Upper Body Workout with Dumbbells is 45:07 minutes; 1:50 minute intro, no warm up and 2 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells and fitness mat. Caroline is using 17.5/38.6 pound and 6kg/13.2 pound dumbbells.

1. Chest press (20# DBs)
2. Single arm row (one 35# DB)
3. Repeat #2 on other arm
4. Repeat #1-3 two more times
5. Bent over rear delt flys, one full fly + one partial fly (raise halfway) (8# DBs)
6. One upright row + one overhead press (arms in goal post) (13# DBs)
7. One Arnold press + one diagonal raise (straight arm front raise but arms are open in a V) (10# DBs)
8. One lateral raise + one partial lateral raise (raise halfway) (8# DBs)
9. One 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) + one arc raise (straight arm front raise to the front with palms facing each other, at top of lift when DBs are at shoulder level, arc top ends of DBs toward each other so that ends of DBs almost touch) (7# DBs)
10. Repeat #5-9
11. Pullover (one 35# DB)
12. Diamond press (lay on back holding one DB in both hands, push DB to ceiling) (one 30# DB)
13. Repeat #11 & 12 two more times
14. Hammer curl + wide curl (Caroline is actually doing a regular palms up bicep curl not a hammer curl) (15# DBs)
15. Repeat #14

Finisher:

1. Opposite foot reach sit up, 25 reps (lay on back one one knee bent, foot on mat, other leg extended straight, do a sit up while also raising straight leg, touch foot with opposite hand)
2. Repeat #1 on other side of body
3. Opposite foot reach crunch, 25 reps (lay on back one knee bent, foot on mat, other leg extended straight to ceiling, crunch upper body reaching opposite hand to foot)
4. Repeat #3 on other side of body

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