FUEL Series 30 Min POSTERIOR CHAIN Circuits Workout | Day 8

30 Min Posterior Chain Circuits is Day 8 in Caroline Girvan‘s Fuel Series. Another tough and excellent workout. I love posterior chain workouts. They hits all of my favorite muscle groups to work–back and glutes. My glutes are actually still mildly sore from Fuel Day 18 (glutes & hamstrings), but they were still strong for this workout. And though the focus is on the posterior chain, it is very nearly a total body strength workout since all of your other muscle groups assist in the exercises, especially the upper body exercises.

Most of the exercises in this workout are done interval style: 60 seconds of work followed by 20 seconds of rest. The pullover in Circuit 2 is done for 90 seconds followed by 20 seconds of rest. There is a timer in the upper right 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.

30 Min Posterior Chain Circuits is 37:02 minutes; 1:35 minute intro, no warm up and 2 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells, chair or bench, glute band and mat. Optional is a towel to protect your hips from the heavy dumbbell. Caroline is using one 30kg/66.1 pound dumbbell and two 15kg/33.1 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used. I used my weight bench for the hip thrusts.

Circuit 1:

1. Hip thrust (pause at top) (lean back against your bench or step, knees bent and open so there is tension on band, feet on floor, keep legs open so there is constant tension on the band, one heavy DB rests on hips, raise and lower hips) (one 50# DB)
2. Hamstring thrust (same position as #1 but legs are out further with weight in heels) (one 50# DB)
3. Explosive hip thrusts w/ band only (same position as #1, no DB, thrust hips up explosively and lower normal pace)
4. Squat walk (band is still around thighs above knees, lower into squat hold isometrically while walking laterally side to side)
5. Sumo deadlift (pause at bottom) (stand with legs wide and toes turned out holding one heavy DB in both hands, squat with torso hinged forward deadlift style) (one 60# DB)
6. RDL (Romanian deadlift) (40# DBs)
7. Body weight sumo to RDL (stand with legs wide and toes turned out, lower into sumo squat then hinge torso forward, straightening legs so you are in deadlift, lower glutes back into sumo squat)
8. 40 second rest
9. Repeat #1-8

Circuit 2:

1. Pullovers for 90 seconds (one 40# DB)
2. Double arm bent over row (30# DBs)
3. Single arm rotational row (single arm bent over row, start with palm facing behind you, as you row DB up, rotate DB so that palm faces in front of you at top of row) (one 35# DB)
4. Repeat #3 on other arm
5. Repeat #1-4

Finisher: (one minute; each exercise is done for 30 seconds with no rest/recovery)

1. Landmine row (one 50# DB)
2. Constant tension RDL (hold one DB in both hands, lower to bottom of deadlift but only raise halfway) (one 50# DB)

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