CGX: Drop Set Shoulders

This is a workout from Caroline Girvan‘s CGX app. For more info on Caroline’s App, see the CGX App page.

This is an incredible shoulder workout. Before this short workout was even finished my shoulders had a “full” feeling too them. They still feel pretty pumped and it is more than an hour since I finished this workout. This is a superset workout. What this means is each exercise will be done twice with no rest between sets. You will need several sets of dumbbells. The first time you do the exercise you will use the heaviest dumbbell you can use for that particular exercise/muscle group. For the second set you will immediately drop to a lighter dumbbell but one that still challenges you.

The exercises are done interval style: 45 seconds of work followed by another 45 seconds of work (90 seconds total). Then you get 30 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.

Drop Set Shoulders is 15:24 minutes (this time does not include the optional 5:52 minute warm up or the 1:25 minute intro, also optional) with a 1:20 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells. Caroline is using 10kg/22 pound, 7.5kg/16.5 pound, and 4kg/8.8 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.

1. Shoulder press with arms in goal post (25# DBs)
2. Repeat #1 with lighter DBs (18# DBs)
3. 30 second rest
4. Arnold press (20# DBs)
5. Repeat #4 with lighter DBs (16.5# DBs)
6. 30 second rest
7. Partial rear delt flys (hinge forward and do rear delt flys but only lift DBs part way, palms face behind you) (10# DBs)
8. Full range rear delt flys (8# DBs)
9. 30 second rest
10. Partial lateral raise (straight arm side raises but only lift halfway) (10# DBs)
11. Full range lateral raises (8# DBs)
12. 30 second rest
13. Frontal raise (straight arm front raise holding one heavy DB in both hands) (one 20# DB)
14. Repeat #13 with a lighter DB (one 14# DB)
15. 30 second rest

Finisher:

1. Single arm shoulder press with heaviest DB for 30 seconds (one 22.5# DB)
2. Repeat #1 with medium dumbbell (one 15# DB)
3. Repeat #1 with lightest DB (one 10# DB)
4. 30 second rest
5. Repeat #1-3 on other arm