1 Hour Full Body Workout at Home | No Repeat and Low Impact is another tough and thorough bodyweight strength workout from Caroline Girvan. Caroline works your entire body using nothing but a chair and a towel. There are 3 circuits; a 19 minute lower body circuit, a 20 minute upper body circuit and a 22 minute core circuit. The upper body circuit is incredible. It was very tough. I was really impressed with how well Caroline worked my back without dumbbells or a pull up bar. She hits the chest, triceps and back the hardest but your shoulders get worked, too, and the biceps assist in many of the other exercises. There are a lot of push ups variations. A lot. And Caroline took quite a few personal breaks in the course of the upper body circuit. In fact, she had to take a personal break between every single leaning push up! I was taking plenty of personal breaks as well. The lower body is worked nicely, but not as hard as I am used to Caroline working my lower body. I will note that I am unable to do a pistol squat even with a chair to assist, so I was doing one legged chair squats w/ the toe of my non-working leg on the ground. And the core of course was long and challenging. I am not personally a fan of long core workouts so 22 minutes was pushing it for me. And since this is one of Caroline’s early workouts there was no progress bar. I didn’t really miss it during the lower and upper body circuits but during the endless core work I did wish for something to let me know when it would finally end. The workout ends with 3:30 minute elbow plank hold. Ugh. No fun. I could not hold it for 3:30 minutes. By one minute in I had to take a quick break and after that my breaks became more frequent. But I would say overall I spent most of the 3:30 minutes in plank.
The exercises in this workout are done interval style: 45 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of recovery. There is a timer in the upper left hand side of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recoveries Caroline previews the next exercise. This is basically a no repeat workout. Though certain exercises are repeated (push ups, tricep dips), something about the exercise changes when they are repeated.
1 Hour Full Body Workout at Home | No Repeat and Low Impact is 64:40 minutes; 2 minute intro, no warm up and 1:30 minute stretch. Equipment: fitness mat, a towel and a chair. The towel is only used for one exercise and I used a resistance band instead. It is also optional for another exercise to cushion your knee.
Lower Body:
- Cross arm step up (with arms crossed genie style and one foot on chair/high step, raise up so you are standing on one leg on chair then lower non-working foot back to floor)
- Repeat #1 on other leg
- Bulgarian lunge (stationary lunges with back leg elevated on chair seat/high step)
- Repeat #3 on other side of body
- Pistol squat on chair (single leg squat, lowering bottom to chair then standing with arms extended in front of you and non-working leg extended straight in front of you the entire interval)
- Repeat #5 on other leg
- Alternating reverse lunges with 5 pulses when in lunge
- Squat to pulse x5 (wide leg squat, when in squat pulse 5x)
- Squat rocks (hold squat isometrically, rock forward onto toes then back onto heels)
- Squat walk w/ pulse (lateral squat walks, remain in squat the entire interval, each time you take a step pulse 2x)
- Hamstring march (lay on back on mat, legs are extended with knees are slightly bent, heels on mat, raise glutes and hold isometrically, alternate raising one leg)
- Bridge hold w/ abduction (lay on back, one knee bent, foot on mat close to glutes, raise hips into single leg bridge and hold, raise other leg to ceiling, lower and raise leg, opening it out to side)
- Repeat #12 on other leg
- Straight leg cross over (place towel on chair seat if needed, place one knee and both hands on chair seat, extend other leg out straight behind you, keep leg straight and tap toe out to side of body, raise leg in an arc (like a rainbow) over to other side of body and tap foot to floor outside of other leg)
- Repeat #14 on other leg
- Donkey kick (get on elbows and knees on mat, raise bent leg, pushing sole of foot up to ceiling, when you lower leg bring knee to outside of other calf, push sole of foot up to ceiling again then lower knee back to start)
- Donkey kick pulses (keep leg raised at top of donkey kick and pulse sole of foot up to ceiling)
- Repeat #16 but on this leg she does not cross the working knee over the other calf, she just pushes the sole up to ceiling and lowers it
- Repeat #17 on other leg
Upper Body: 21:20
- Decline push up (feet are on chair and hands are on floor)
- Pike walk out (feet are still on chair and hands on floor in plank, walk hands in closer to chair pushing glutes to ceiling then walk hands back out to plank)
- Shoulder taps (in straight arm plank with feet on chair seat and hands on floor, alternate tapping hand to opposite shoulder)
- Side plank push up (alternating side planks with one push up between each side plank)
- Dips–narrow position (tricep dips with hands close together on chair seat behind you, legs are extended straight)
- Dips–hands on sides of chair (repeat #5 but with hands wider, holding sides of chair)
- Single arm tricep push up (single straight arm plank with one hand on chair seat and legs wide, lower until other hand is on the floor then push back up to single arm plank with chair hand)
- Repeat #7 on other arm
- Deadstop push up (lower body to mat at bottom of push up and raise hands off floor)
- Tricep push up
- Diamond cobra push up (hands are together under body so thumb and finger form a diamond, push up into cobra then lower)
- Tricep push up hold (lower to bottom of tricep push up and hold for approx 3 seconds before pushing back up to plank)
- Lat sweeps (lay on stomach, head/chest are elevated, arms are at sides with palms facing ceiling, pulse arms upward)
- Lat pull down (still laying on stomach, hold one end of a towel in each hand, push towel in front of you superman-style then pull towel into chest; I used a resistance band)
- Rear flys (still laying on stomach, head/chest elevated, arms are extended to sides in a T, palms face away from you, pinky to ceiling, pulse arms upward)
- Reverse snow angel (still laying on stomach, head/chest elevated, extend arms in front of you, sweep them out to side bringing hands beside glutes)
- Pike push up to push up (start in pike, do one pike push up, walk hands out to plank and do one regular push up, walk hands back to pike)
- Leaning push up (start in straight arm plank, push body forward with toes and do a push up)
- Plank up and down (get into straight arm plank with your chair directly in front of you, step hands up onto chair seat one at a time then return hands to floor)
- Plank hips up and down (alternate elbow plank with dolphin pose)
Core:
- Plank knee tuck (in elbow/forearm plank, alternate bringing knee to tricep on outside of body)
- Sit up butterfly (full sit up but legs are open in butterfly, soles of feet together and knees turned out)
- Straight leg sit up with cross arms (full sit up with arms in genie and legs extended straight)
- V sit to tuck (start in V sit with arms extended out to sides then bring knees into chest and tap hands to heels)
- V sit scissors (hold V sit while scissoring legs)
- X lower (lay back on mat, leaning on elbows, criss cross elevated legs)
- Elbow tuck to extension (still leaning back on elbows, extend legs straight (elevated a few inches off mat) then pull legs into chest)
- Wipers (still leaning back on elbows, legs are raised to ceiling, lower legs to one side then the other like windshield wipers)
- Crunch pulse (lay on back on mat, knees bent and feet on mat, crunch upper body, reaching hands to knees, pulse 2x at top of crunch)
- Toe reach crunch (lay on back, legs straight and extended to ceiling, crunch upper body, reaching hands to feet)
- Reverse crunch (still on back on mat, do one reverse crunch then push legs out straight in line w/ hips a few inches off the mat)
- Tuck to hollow (lay on back, crunch upper body, bringing knees into chest, tap hands to heels, extend legs straight a few inches off the mat while also extending arms overhead a few inches off the floor)
- Heel reaches (lay on back on mat, knees bent and feet on mat, head/shoulders are elevated, reach hand to same side heel, alternate sides)
- Half bicycle (lay on back on mat and bicycle legs)
- Single leg lower (lay on back on mat, both legs are extended straight to ceiling, lower and raise one leg)
- Repeat #15 on other leg
- Table top 3 point tap (lay on back with knees bent and feet in floor, arms are extended straight at sides, crunch upper body up and tap fingers to knees then to heels then back to heels then lower upper body back to floor)
- Butterfly pulses (lay on back on mat, legs are open in butterfly, soles of feet together and knees turned out, head/shoulders are elevated in crunch, pulse at top of crunch)
- Hold elbow plank for 3:30 minutes
For more info on Caroline Girvan’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
