CGX: ‘No Pressing’ Shoulder

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 interesting shoulder workout. Caroline works your shoulder’s with no overhead presses, no Arnold presses–no exercises where you are pushing the dumbbells overhead. But you do get a lot of upright rows since it is the staple exercise. I’m not a big fan of upright rows but they do work your shoulders. Caroline’s CGX app has a lot of shoulder workouts and, though I did like this one, it wasn’t my favorite and will not be a go to for me in the future.

For this workout you will alternate one superset with the staple exercise. All of the exercises are done interval style. The supersets are done for 45 seconds of work followed by another 45 seconds of work (90 seconds total). Then you get 30 seconds of rest. You do the staple exercise (Upright Rows) for 45 seconds followed by 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 superset or the staple. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage.

‘No Pressing’ Shoulder is 17:41 minutes (this time does not include the optional 5:53 minute warm up) with a 1:45 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells. Caroline is using 7.5kg/16.5 pound and 4kg/8.8 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.

1. Lateral raise (9# DBs)
2. Partials (raise only halfway) (9# DBs)
3. 30 second rest
4. Staple: Upright row (15# DBs)
5. 30 second rest
6. Bent over rear delt fly (pronated grip–palms face each other) (9# DBs)
7. Diagonal raise (stand up right, same as a lateral raise except arms open in a wide V) (9# DBs)
8. 30 second rest
9. Repeat #4 & 5 (staple)
10. Bent over rear delt fly (palms face behind you) (9# DBs)
11. Supine front raise (straight arm front raise, palms face ceiling) (9# DBs)
12. 30 second rest
13. Repeat #4 & 5 (staple)
14. Bent over rear delt fly partials (palms face behind you) (9# DBs)
15. 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) (9# DBs)
16. 30 second rest
17. Repeat #4 & 5 (staple)

Finisher: (2 minutes; no rest/recoveries)

1. Lateral raise for 45 seconds (9# DBs)
2. Frontal raise for 45 seconds (9# DBs)
3. Lateral to frontal raise for 30 seconds (alternate one lateral raise with one frontal raise) (9# DBs)