CGXmas Day 6: Lower Body Circuits

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 excellent and thorough lower body strength workout. It is short but Caroline hits every muscle in the lower body nicely. Challenge yourself with your weight selection and you will definitely feel it by the end. My legs were very fatigued. I paired this with CGXmas Day 15: Leg Day Complexes, which felt brutal after completing this workout since my legs were already pretty fatigued.

This workout is done interval style. The interval and recovery times vary so they are noted below in the breakdown. 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.

Lower Body Circuits is 22:45 minutes (this time does not include the optional 9 minute warm up or the 1:02 minute intro, also optional) with a 1:30 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells or a barbell, a chair or bench, heel wedges and a fitness mat. Optional is a towel to protect your hips from the dumbbell or a barbell pad. Caroline’s barbell is at 48kg/105.8 pound, and she uses 20kg/44 pound and 15kg/33 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.

1. Static lunges for 60 seconds (stationary lunges) (30# DBs)
2. 30 second rest
3. Repeat #1 & 2 on other side of body
4. Heel elevated squat for 90 seconds (heels are elevated on wedges, hold one DB in both hands in front of chest) (one 40# DB)
5. 30 second rest
6. RDL for 90 seconds (Romanian deadlift) (hex trap bar @ 105#)
7. 30 second rest
8. Hip thrust for 90 seconds (lean back against your bench or step, place barbell on hips, knees bent and feet on floor in line with knees, raise and lower hips slowly) (barbell @ 88#)
9. 30 second rest
10. Repeat #1-9

Finisher: (2 minutes; each exercise is done for 30 seconds w/ no rest/recoveries)

1. Heel elevated squat for 90 seconds (heels are elevated on wedges, hold one DB in both hands in front of chest) (one 40# DB)
2. Bodyweight pause at bottom squat (lower to bottom of squat and pause briefly)
3. Repeat #1 but pause at top of squat (squat at a brisk pace but pause briefly at top when standing)
4. 1.5 reps (lower to bottom of squat, raise halfway, lower back to bottom of squat then raise all the way)