Lifting with Caroline Girvan- keeping it real and having a laugh along the way!

[BigButtons]

New thread!

Hi @Enrichetta ! I think I remember you!welcome back!
You were a fan of LWR and Rebecca Louise. Can’t remember what yourold user name was though.
sorry about your wrist☹️
i get it re the biceps tendinitis and tennis elbow I have both and have had them for blooming ages.
Tendons are awfully stiff and stubborn as we get older.
I always seem to have a niggle somewhere that affects my training.
Do you have the app? She has an ultimate beginners on there which might work for you?🙂

Welcome back Enruchetta! Tendonitis goes hand in hand with menopause, sadly. I have golfers elbow and supine rows and bicep curls are really hard. So I do pronated rows and hammer curls instead. I only had 5 hours sleep but didn’t drink much so did a quad workout and 40 minute cardio bike on bike, it was still only -6C when I took the dogs out after, flipping freezing. Raclette for lunch so copious calories will be eaten.

Thanks, @BigButtons and @samthebordercollie !

I am a fan of a handful of specific workouts by LWR and Rebecca’s, but mostly I favour Caroline and Growingannanas. Not forgetting the Bowflex 3-minute plank!

I'll try the pronated rows and hammer curls with a 2.5 kg dumbbell in the affected arm, paired with a heavier dumbbell. I need to be careful because when I tried with a pair of 5kg a few months ago I had a big setback.

I also plan to focus more on cardio/HIIT, which I’m none too fond of but which will hopefully improve my general fitness - and stop me from eating crap… Also lots of legwork to prepare for our skiing trip in three weeks!!

I'm torn about getting the app. Other than the Ultimate Beginners programme, is it likely to be useful (and cost effective) for me at this point?

@Enrichetta you can get a free 2 week trial on the app and do monthly subscription? You can see if you like it. The app is good but also lacking in areas like cardio. She also uses a very limited number of moves compared to you tube

@Enrichetta welcome back! I like the app because I can turn off the music, it’s worth it for that alone!

I did iron pro day 49 this morning after a 6kg run. I weighed myself again and confirmed the 3kg weight gain in December, despite running 70k and doing 24 Caroline workouts. I’m such a pig! My running jacket barely zips over my hips. A month of penury should hopefully get me back on track.

Im gonna try to do the 30 days of Charlie follows yoga although I see I’m a day behind already as it started yesterday!

Are the rumours true that the CGX development team are looking at putting the YouTube content on the App? I hope so!

I had heard a while back that they had looked into it but the formatting of the YouTube ones makes it nigh on impossible to do ☹️

I always turn off the music when I work out - usually listen to Women’s Hour or Desert Island Discs instead.

I really have to get back to working out daily and seriously, intermittent fasting and cutting out carbs and sugar.

I was doing so well - felt super fit - until I injured myself. Still don’t know exactly how I did it….. just kind of twisted my wrist when I did a simple shoulder press.

I have noticed that i naturally want to cock my wrists back when doing any pressing. I try to watch that they are straight. It is a constant battle must be said.

It would be nice in theory but I'd just do them on YouTube anyway- better functionality and connectivity, can arrange in a playlist with other trainers' workouts, can play it on the TV without difficulties, etc. What I'd prefer is to be able to stream MAX and Unleash on YouTube via paid subscription, or else what other trainers offer- permanent digital downloads available to purchase on a program by program or workout by workout basis.

There is zero incentive for CG to add the YT ones to cgx. She already has our subscription money for the new content without paying the hosting / streaming costs for all that video content from YouTube for one thing. The app is glitchy and can be very slow on PC with tons of lags and buffering, plus the app's search function is already crap and easily overwhelmed-- how would it cope with 600+ new workouts all at once?

Time to kick bottom again, @Enrichetta Check out Tracy Steen and Lift with Cee too.

Day 50 of iron pro done - in total I did 39/50 of the workouts. Drawing a line under it now and starting Play tomorrow. I’m feeling weak - probably because of the restricted diet. Although my digestive tract seems very happy for the first time in several weeks so the whole food diet is doing some good.

Well done on that! I'll probably try Play when it arrives, though foolishly just did another leg day - Iron Pro Day 31- so it will depend how intense it looks. Glute bridges are doable but awkward here - no barbell, but can just about stack 48kg of weights on my lap (2 x 2kg ankle weights, 2 x 15kg dumbbells, 2 x 7kg dumbbells), but it's a bit nervy. If Play is all heavy hip thrusts, I will probably bow out quite quickly.

Good luck to everyone making dietary changes. It's the hardest part of all this ugh. My resolutions are more about exercise, though-- with cardio to be the foundation of my week this year, weights being for rest days or after cardio is ticked off.

Scored a very cheap leather sandbag thing, 10kg. I did a 20min TrainerHub sandbag video for core and conditioning using it, and it was a good warm up for Iron Pro.

I’m nearing the end of epic two. I did the EMOM today. I think I’m going to skip to day 50 tomorrow and then start Play on Monday, although if it’s just more of the same I’m going to do epic three and seriously think about ditching the app. Does anyone know why she decided to stop having a cardio day in her programmes? Epic two has been great for my body, especially over Christmas! That’s probably not just the cardio though, but also the slightly longer run times.

Somewhere I have a list of all the cardio/HIIT sessions from her YouTube series. I just cycle through those once a week or so.

Growingannanas is also pretty good for HIIT (but not quite as intense as Mrs Girvan…)

When Caroline has her hair braided you know you’re in for a rough ride… 😩

Ugh- I have just read her overly long happy new year diatribe . She introduced the week ahead and then mention that will boi had written another (useless) article.
we shall see/
I will not do heavy glutes twice a week. Will do body weight if that is the case/

It was a LONG post….and I don’t care for his contributions either. At least they’ve been off the socials recently 🙄

I am excited to get started with play though!

Well day 3 and I’ve already broken veganuary as I can’t drink another oat latte, they’re disgusting and coffee is too important to me these days. So I guess I’m following her advice of not aiming for perfection. The rest is just waffle, though. I shall look forward to his comments on empty gyms with bated breath, not.

Stability ball rollouts x2 in the first week?

And she has put all her Christmas decorations away by New Year?

The psycho.

Play day one: no repeat my arse. I was so bloody bored.

All the bloody lunges! I couldn’t face it. It’s also freezing here and we have some snow so I had a lazy day in front of the fire. Managed some yoga.

It’s pretty cold @Fibrous . Stay cosy.
honestly I don’t get all those people in the fn group saying it was hard. No it wasn’t . If you started with the epics this was a gentle session. I was hoping for something epic like- same old boring moves. I am very moany at the moment. I am doing dry January and have also nearly quite vaping at the same time🫣😬

I didn’t do it - but haven’t done much this weekend as have been laid up with a horrible gastric bug all weekend. No lifting and no eating! Feel better now, so may do the push day tomorrow if it isn’t too dull.

I didn't do it either. Just uninspiring. I did cardio + yoga instead.

Get well soon, Sam!

However, Day 2 was great! I really enjoyed it though it didn't have enough for the triceps perhaps. You definitely felt challenged by the last set of every triset. I still think a push up, mountain climber or burpee burnout finisher would have been better