Chest & Back Workout is Day 3 in Heather Robertson‘s 12 Week 4.0 program. It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of Heather’s strength workouts and I really enjoyed returning this morning. I had not forgotten how metabolic her workouts can be. Even for an upper body workout my heart was starting to push into the Zone 4 by the end. Due to the metabolic nature of this workout I did lift a bit lighter than I normally do for some of the exercises. I still got a great upper body strength workout.
This is a circuit based workout. There are two circuits and each circuit is done 3 times. The exercises are done interval style: 40 seconds of work followed by 20 seconds of recovery. There is a timer in the lower right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recoveries Heather previews the next exercise. At the bottom of the screen during the preview, there is a small graphic with a weight recommendation–light, medium or heavy.
Chest & Back Workout is 38:51 minutes; 55 second intro, 2:45 minute warm up and 4 minute stretch. Equipment: light, medium and heavy dumbbells and fitness mat. The weights listed below are what I used. I also used a weight bench for the single arm rows.
- Neutral chest press (standard chest press but Heather’s arms are situated so the dumbbells form a wide V) (30# DBs)
- Chest fly (legs are raised and knees bent at 90 degrees, legs remain in this position while doing a chest fly) (22.5# DBs)
- Alternating wide press (arms are in standard chest press position (not the wide V like in #1), hold arms straight w/ DBs extended toward ceiling and alternate the lowering portion of the press) (30# DBs)
- Push ups (Heather’s hands hold DBs to go deeper into the push up)
- Upward chest fly (stand with arms at sides, palms facing in front of you, do a straight arm front raise, bringing ends of DBs together in front of you so you form a V when lifting) (10# DBs)
- Repeat #1-5 two more times
- 30 second rest
- Dumbbell pullover (legs are raised and knees bent at 90 degrees, legs remain in this position while doing a pullover) (one 40# DB)
- Single arm row (Heather is in kneeling lunge, torso is hinged forward and non-working hand rests on the end of another DB; I just placed one knee and one hand on a weight bench) (one 50# DB)
- Repeat #9 on other arm
- Underhand row (double arm bent over row, palms facing forward) (30# DBs)
- Scapular squeeze (hold DBs in front of thighs with palms facing in front of you, extend arms out to sides in a T then pull elbows behind ribs, push elbows back out to a T then lower both arms in front of body, palms still facing forward) (8# DBs)
- Repeat #8-12 two more times
For more info on Heather Robertson’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
