CGX: Drop It Back & Biceps

This is a workout from Caroline Girvan‘s CGX app. For more info on Caroline’s App, see the CGX App page. This is a short but effective upper body workout. Caroline did a whole week of drop set workouts. Drop sets are a strength training technique used to maximize muscle gain. The idea is to do an exercise using a heavy weight and lift to failure. Once you hit failure, drop to a lower weight and continue repping it out with the same exercise to really fry the muscle. I definitely did that with the bicep exercises but for some reason I decided to be a bit conservative with the back exercises. I still felt it but I feel like I should have lifted heavier for the first exercise in the back drop sets. And I will next time I do this workout. I still got a great workout with the weights I used. I definitely fried my biceps!

This workout is made up of supersets. You will do two exercises, back to back with no rest between them then you get a 30 to 45 second recovery. 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 superset. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage.

Drop It Back & Biceps is 24:28 minutes (this time does not include the optional 5:53 minute warm up or 2:24 minute intro, also optional) with a one minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells, bench or fitness mat. Caroline is using one 17.5kg/38.5 pound dumbbell, one 12.5kg/27.5 pound, 7.5kg/16.5 pound and 11kg/11 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.

1. Pullover for 60 seconds (one 40# DB)
2. (no rest) Repeat #1 with a lighter DB for 45 seconds (one 30# DB)
3. 45 second rest
4. Repeat #1-3 two more times
5. Bent over row for 60 seconds (single arm row, one hand and one knee rest on bench) (one 40# DB)
6. (no rest) Repeat #5 with a lighter DB for 30 seconds (one 30# DB)
7. 30 second rest
8. Repeat #5-7 on other arm
9. Repeat 5-8
10. Palms up bicep curls for 45 seconds (20# DBs)
11. (no rest) Repeat #10 with lighter DBs for 30 seconds (15# DBs)
12. 30 second rest
13. Repeat #10-12
14. Hammer curls for 45 seconds (20# DBs)
15. (no rest) Repeat #4 with lighter DBs for 30 seconds (15# DBs)
16. 30 second rest
17. Repeat #15-16 (I dropped to 18# & 13# DBs)

Finisher: (one minute)

1. Rotational curls for 30 seconds (16.5# DBs)
2. (no rest) Repeat #1 with lighter DBs for 30 seconds (12# DBs)