43MIN Upper Body Strength // Day 2: HR12WEEK 5.0

43 Min Upper Body Strength is Day 2 in Heather Robertson‘s HR12Week 5.0 program.

This is an excellent upper body workout. Use weights that challenge you and your upper body will be worked thoroughly. This is a circuit based workout. There are 4 circuits and each circuit is done twice. You start with a shoulder circuit. Next is a back circuit. The last two circuits combine muscle groups. Circuit 3 is chest and triceps and circuit 4 is biceps, triceps and shoulders.

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.

43 Min Upper Body Strength is 42:48 minutes; 40 second intro, 4:45 minute warm up and 4 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells and a fitness mat. Heather recommends weights from 5 to 25 pounds. The weights listed below are what I used.

Circuit 1:

1. Single arm Arnold press (one 20# DB)
2. Repeat #1 on other arm
3. Single dumbbell front raise (hold one DB by bells in both hands, with arms straight raise DB from thighs to shoulder level) (one 20# DB)
4. Lateral raise (9# DBs)
5. Repeat #1-4

30 second rest

Circuit 2:

1. Neutral bent over row (double arm, palms face each other, arms kept close to sides) (30# DBs)
2. Pullover (lay on back, legs raised and knees bent at 90 degrees, legs hold this position while upper body does pullover) (one 40# DB)
3. Plank row (renegade row, alternate arms) (30# DBs)
4. Super V squeeze (lay on stomach with arms extended in front of you, raise arms and legs in superman, hold and pull elbows behind back, push arms in front of you again then lower hands/legs) (I used a medium resistance band)
5. Repeat #1-4

30 second rest

Circuit 3:

1. Push ups
2. Chest press (30# DBs)
3. Straight press (narrow chest press/tricep press–arms kept close to sides and palms face each other) (20# DBs)
4. Skull crushers (15# DBs)
5. Repeat #1-4

30 second rest

Circuit 4:

1. Alternating hammer curls (20# DBs)
2. Curl & press (double arm hammer curl into an overhead shoulder press) (20# DBs)
3. Tricep extension (French press) (one 25# DB)
4. Bicep burn out (fast alternating bicep curls using light DBs) (5# DBs)
5. Repeat #1-4

For more info on Heather Robertson’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.