30 Min Final Full Body Workout – Hypertrophy is Day 29 of Caroline Girvan‘s Iron Series. This was an excellent total body strength workout. In fact, I felt really strong while doing this workout–as if I could have lifted heavier on some of the exercises. I am already lifting heavier dumbbells thanks to all of the Iron Series workouts preceding this one! This workout is done PHA style. PHA stands for Peripheral Heart Action. What this means in training terms is you alternate between upper and lower body resistance exercises. PHA is usually done circuit fashion with little rest between exercises for a higher calorie burn while also giving muscle groups adequate recovery time. Caroline doesn’t really do it that way. She gives 30 seconds of rest between the majority of the exercises, so this workout isn’t very metabolic. However, the long rest periods between muscle groups means your muscles are completely rested when you return to the exercise. Plus, for most of the exercises the intervals are shorter than what we have been doing through most of the Iron Series. Through most of this series the intervals are 60 seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest; in this workout it is 45 seconds of seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest. This shorter interval also gives you the opportunity to lift heavier. However, the pullovers (#8 below) are done for 60 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of rest. So there is not a lot of time to get off your mat and quickly get into position for the deadlifts. But you still get 30 seconds of rest after the deadlifts (#9 below). The structure and interval times of this workout make it possible to really challenge yourself. Caroline touches on this in her intro–that this is a great workout to return to try to lift those heavier dumbbells. Since I definitely plan to return to many of the workouts in the Iron Series, I will try to lift even heavier the next time I do this workout. Since this workout is just 37 minutes, I used one of Heather Robertson‘s workouts as a finisher, her 12 Minute Kickboxing Tabata. It gave me a great burst of cardio after this excellent total body strength workout.
***I am using this workout as part of the Strength & Muscle Building Rotation I created. Since this is one of the workouts I am using as a sort of measuring stick, in the breakdown below I am adding the date and the weight I used on that date. The first weight (without a date) is the weight I used when I created this review. If there is just a weight and no date then I used the same weight; so no change.***
30 Min Final Full Body Workout – Hypertrophy is 37:09 minutes; 3:13 minute intro, no warm up and 4 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells, a chair and a fitness mat. Caroline is using 20kg/44.1 pound and 15kg/33.1 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used. 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.
- Seated shoulder press (arms in goal post) (20# DBs) (09/26/22 22.5# DBs) (11/07/22 25# DBs)
- Static lunge (stationary lunges) (20# DBs) (09/26/22 22.5# DBs) (11/07/22 25# DBs)
- Repeat #2 on other side of body
- Repeat #1-3 two more times
- Chest press (25# DBs) (09/26/22 27.5# DBs) (11/07/22 30# DBs)
- Pause goblet squat (pause at bottom of squat) (one 45# DB) (11/07/22 one 50# DB)
- Repeat #5 & 6 two more times
- Pullover (one 40# DB) (04/29/23 (one 42.5# DB)
- RDL (Romanian deadlift) (37.5# DBs) (09/26/22 & 11/07/22 40# DBs) (04/29/23 42.5# DBs)
- Repeat #8 & 9 two more times
Finisher: (2 minutes; no rest/recoveries)
- Bulgarian lunge for 45 seconds (body weight stationary/static lunge w/ back leg elevated on chair)
- Repeat #1 on other side of body
- Push ups for 30 seconds
For more info on Caroline Girvan’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
This one was a great example of how you don’t need a ton of different exercises to get a really great workout in a short period of time. Whenever you put out your rotation, I will definitely use it!
Today I did the Heather/Caroline mashup again. This time it was GlowUp Day 7 tabata/stretch and Fuel Day 19 cardio full body dumbbell. I started with the tabata which, again, served as a great warmup to the Fuel workout. There were burpees again in this workout which I did end up modifying most of. But for a 30 min workout, Caroline did a great job hitting all the major muscles and, of course, getting that cardio in. After I was done with that, I returned to Heather for the stretch part. It was a nice way to end the workout.
Tomorrow I have the GlowUp cardio AMRAP scheduled but I’m really on the fence with that one. I have to go back in your blog to the other cardio AMRAP we did a while ago because I want to say both of us didn’t like it. If that’s the case then I will sub her new kickboxing workout instead.
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I don’t know why but lately the thought of an AMRAP workout doesn’t motivate me. Which is kind of weird because I love Caroline’s complex workouts and they are basically AMRAP workouts. I only have one week left of Iron Series ☹️ then I will be doing a week of a lot of Heather’s newer workouts–including her Fusion Flow and Glow Up workouts. But I am not doing any AMRAPs.
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Another one I absolutely loved in the series! I’ve always struggled with making progress on shoulder presses. For this workout, I was able to bump my weight up to my 25s! Such a great series overall.
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Wow! 25s! I am impressed. 20s is a big deal for me, but I actually felt like next time I could lift heavier. But for me, that will be 22.5s! This is a great workout to end the series with, too.
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