CGX: Max Program Day 1: The most ‘well known’ compounds to start!

This is a workout from Caroline Girvan‘s CGX app. For more info on Caroline’s App, see the CGX App page.

This is the first workout in Caroline’s new 10 week Max Program. All of the workouts in this program are total body strength workouts. As of today, Caroline has only posted 12 of the 50 Max workouts in the program, but so far they are all PHA workouts. PHA stands for Peripheral Heart Action. What this means in training terms is you alternate between upper and lower body resistance exercises, only taking short rests between exercises. The lack of rest and recovery keeps your heart rate elevated for cardiovascular and fat burning benefits, while switching between upper and lower body exercises maximizes blood flow to all parts of the body and reduces build up of lactic acid. This also gives muscle groups plenty of rest between sets; in theory, your upper body is resting while your lower body is working and your lower body is resting while your upper body is working.

Having explained all of that, I loved this workout. Loved it! Switching between upper and lower body exercises makes it a more metabolic workout and it did give my muscles more time to recover and therefore I felt fresh again when returning to an exercise. This was a solid full body workout that hits all the large muscle groups. No bicep or tricep isolation but they assist the large muscle groups and therefore get worked, too.

This program also has it’s own warm up which I really like. It is a very thorough total body warm up to uses some equipment (light dumbbells and a glute band). The Max workouts are shorter than what I’ve been doing in her Intent and P.E. programs, so I like the length of the warm up (9 minutes). The stretches so far in this program are very short so I will be adding a longer full body stretch to the end of each workout.

This workout is done interval style. Each exercise is done for 60 seconds followed by a 30 second recovery. There is a timer in the upper right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recoveries Caroline previews the next exercise. There is also a progress bar along the bottom of the screen, counting down the workout time as a percentage.

Day 1 is 38:44 minutes (this time does not include the optional 9:18 minute warm up or 6:25 minute intro, also optional) with a 1:45 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells, barbell, chair/bench, glute band and fitness mat. The glute band is for the warm up. You will also be using light dumbbells for the warm up. Caroline is using 4kg/8.8 pound dumbbells. For the actual workout Caroline is using a barbell at 68kg/150 pounds. She is also using 17.5kg/38.5 pound, 15kg/33 pound and 10kg/22 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.

1. RDL (Romanian deadlift) (hex deadlift bar @ 100#)
2. Shoulder press (seated in a high backed chair, at bottom of of shoulder press arms are in goal post) (20# DBs)
3. Repeat #1 & 2 two more times
4. Squats (DBs at shoulders) (30# DBs)
5. Single arm row (one knee and non-working hand rest on the bench) (one 40# DB)
6. Repeat #5 on other arm
7. Repeat #4-6 two more times
8. 60 second rest
9. Hip thrust (lean back against your bench or step, knees bent with feet on floor and knees in line w/ ankles, barbell rests on hips, raise and lower. hips) (barbell @ 110#)
10. Chest press (30# DBs)
11. Repeat #9 & 10 two more times

30 second rest

Finisher:

1. Single leg hip thrust for 30 seconds (lean back against bench or step with one knee bent and foot on floor, knee in line with ankle, other leg is raised, raise and lower hips)
2. (no rest) Hamstring thrust for 30 seconds (same as #1 except floor foot is extended out further so knee is only partially bent and heel is on the floor)
3. (no rest) Repeat #1 & 2 on other leg
4. (no rest) Repeat #1 for 20 seconds
5. (no rest) Pulse for 20 seconds (keep leg raised, keep hips raised at top of hip thrust and pulse hips upward)
6. (no rest) Repeat #4
7. (no rest) Repeat #4-6 on other leg