Caroline Girvan’s fitness app CGX launched April 27, 2023. She created the very best video workouts out there for free on YouTube. She posted her first workout April 5, 2020 during the pandemic and her last YouTube workout posted in October 2022. In 2 1/2 years she posted over 600 workouts that are all still available for free on YouTube (check out over 200 of those workouts I have done and reviewed on this blog). We were all sad when she stopped uploading workouts to YouTube but even without any new workouts, she has created more than enough excellent workouts to keep us all busy for years. I still have haven’t done all of them, though many are on my To Do list. But I do return to my favorites frequently. Here is the video she created, explaining why she created the CGX app.
Caroline continues to create amazing workouts but now she does it on her CGX App. It is $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year. You get the first 2 weeks as a free trial. The app contains individual workouts, workout programs, meal ideas/recipes and lots and lots of fitness and nutrition articles. It also has an entire how-to section in which Caroline demonstrates proper form for just about every exercise performed in her workouts. Each how-to video is approximately 1-3 minutes but a few are as long as 6 minutes.
It gets better. You can create your own rotation calendar. The app contains a calendar and you can assign workouts to days on the calendar. In addition, each workout on the app contains a notes section where you can record the weights you lifted to track your progress.
Now that I have been doing CGX workouts for 2 weeks, I can give some more info. Most of the workouts come with an optional warm up. The warm ups are geared toward the focus of the workout. So if it is an upper body workout, you will be primarily warming up your upper body. If it is a lower body workout, you will primarily be warming up your lower body and if it is total body? You guessed it, your entire body gets warmed up. The upper body focused warm up is 6 minutes, the lower body focused warm up is 9 minutes and the total body focused warm up is 11:30 minutes. The warm ups contain a lot of mobility work, which I really like.
I have only been using this app now for 2 weeks but I LOVE it. I love the ability to schedule and stack workouts. She has so many short but focused and thorough workouts. I can create my own muscle splits. If I want a chest and back day? Easy, schedule a back workout and a chest workout. Right now she has 2 of each and I am sure she will have more as she continues to build content but the ones she currently has are excellent. If I want a posterior chain day? Back workout + a glute or hamstring workout. At first I thought the biggest drawback was the short stretches, but if you are stacking workouts like me, it is not a drawback at all. You get 1-2 minutes of stretching at the end of a workout then you go right into the next workout. And since I use Airplay to send the workout from my iPhone to my TV, I have a longer stretch queued up on YouTube. When I finish the final CGX workout of the day, there it is. All I have to do is hit play and start my longer stretch.
Though there are a lot of short workouts, there are longer workouts, too. And she currently has 2 programs. A beginner program and a 10 week Beastmode (advanced) program. For something that is only a few weeks old, there is a lot of excellent content.
Currently there are some problems with the app that I hope are fixed. It is impossible to know if you are seeing all of the workouts available. It is not set up so that you can scroll through every workout the app contains. For all I know there are workouts on there I am not aware of and I have scoured the app using the search function. The search filter is a problem, too. You can only get good results if you choose one filter. Meaning, choosing more filter topics doesn’t refine your results. Instead, if you choose 2 things to filter for it gives you everything with both or either. For example, if you choose 10-20 minute workouts AND Strength workouts. You will get every single Strength workout regardless of the length, PLUS every single 10-20 minute workout–whether it is a strength workout or not. I have submitted a feature suggestion about both of these issues. If it bothers you, then I suggest you also make a suggestion as well. The more people that make the suggestion, the greater chance these issues will be fixed.
Below I will list every CGX workout I’ve done. I will review them just like I review every other workout on this blog, but they will also be listed on this page for easy access. I will separate them into categories just like I do on the page I created for Caroline. BTW–these workouts will also be on Caroline’s page but this page is exclusively for CGX workouts.
Total Body:
Outdoor Kettlebell Cardio (13 minutes; 24:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
1 Hour Kettlebell Full Body Workout (63 minutes; 74:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
1 Hour Dumbbell Full Body (66 minutes; 77:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Upper Body:
6 Minute Push Ups (8 minutes; 14 minutes w/ optional warm up)
10 Minute Shoulder Workout (11 minutes; 17 minutes w/ optional warm up)
10 Min Lats (12:30 minutes; 18:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Bicep Curls (13 minutes; 19 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Drop Set Shoulders (15:30 minutes; 21:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Express Chest Workout (15:30 minutes; 21:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Arms Circuit Workout (16 minutes; 23 minutes w/ optional warm up)
‘Elbows in’ Triceps (17:30 minutes; 23:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
‘No Pressing’ Shoulders (17:30 minutes; 23:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Chest and Triceps Workout (18:30 minutes; 26:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Just the Triceps (22 minutes; 28 minutes w/ optional warm up)
‘All Heads’ Shoulder Workout (22:30 minutes; 28:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Back Workout (24 minutes; 30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Unilateral Shoulder Session (25 minutes; 31 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Back Circuit (25:30 minutes; 31 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Shoulders and Arms Straight Sets (60 minutes; 66 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Lower Body:
5 Min Quad Finisher (8:30 minutes; 17:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Hamstring Roll Outs (10 minutes)
No Repeats Dumbbell Leg Workout (18:45 minutes; 28 minutes w/ optional warm up)
All Glutes Hip Thrusts (19 minutes; 28 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Lengthen and Contract Hamstrings (19 minutes; 28 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Stability Ball Trisets (19 minutes; 28 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Hamstring Workout (21:30 minutes; 30:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Squats & RDLs (22 minutes; 31 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Unilateral Lower Body (23:30 minutes; 32:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
25 Minute Leg Circuit (27:30 minutes; 36:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
40 Min Unilateral Glutes and Hamstrings (44 minutes; 53 minutes w/ optional warm up)
1 Hour Lower Body (68:30 minutes; 77:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
Miscellaneous:
Rowing Workout (11 minutes; 22:30 minutes w/ optional warm up)
10 Min Core and Abs (12:45 minutes)
Dumbbell Abs Circuit (15:30 minutes)