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

[BigButtons]

New thread!

Oh dear @BigButtons - good luck with the temperance! I’d be feeling grumpy, too. My mother, a 60 a day b&h-er and a one or two bottles a wine a day seventy something year old recently quit both much to our surprise and annoyance as she made it look really easy and we all wondered why she hadn’t done it years ago (us all being non smokers and her being a bad drunk). She now hates both and judges anyone who still drinks or smokes 😂.

good to hear day 2 was more interesting. I’ll give it a go this evening. It snowed properly here overnight. Looks beautiful, but it’s gonna be a faff getting to my dogs vet appointment.

Too much raclette @samthebordercollie ? I was thinking of it with jealousy as I ate my lentil soup 😂.

I am clearly a miserable barsteward atm cos I found day 2 equally tedious- apart from the last triset which was ok/ actually it was the first triset that I loathed. I kept pausing the video to wander off and do other stuff

I enjoyed day 2 😊

Happy New Year to everyone. I did Play Day1 today and found it quite tedious. I think I've got used to the shorter Advent Calendar ones! I really wish each leg day covered quads and hamstrings/glutes rather than one day quads and the other day glutes/hamstrings. I know there was some hamstring work in Day1 but I imagine tomorrow's will be 100% glutes and hamstrings with endless thrusts.

I enjoyed the mix of Max which was much more full body every day !

Well, I felt better today and fully intended to do Day 2 play but decided it didn’t look as good as my (now) regular morning workout from Intent which I love. So I didn’t. Might do it Friday.
@Fibrousit definitely wasn’t the raclette but may have been some prawns I ate. I didn’t eat them all and gave the rest to the dogs but they haven’t been ill but then they have galvanised stomachs. Anyway thanks to being poorly I’ve been inadvertently doing Dry January too as I only drink at weekends , not something I intend to see through like @BigButtonsJanuary is too depressing and cheese without wine is just unthinkable, I’d have to give up cheese too and that isn’t going to happen!
looking forward to Day 3 of Play tomorrow and probably not doing it if more than 3 sets of hipthrusts are involved 😂

Damn those prawns! Good you have dogs with iron stomachs. One of mine only has to look at something outside his normal diet and he has us up with gravy poos on the hour all night long.

I did day 2 today and thought it was hard. I’m cooking tea now and my arms are aching stirring my lentils!

Is it just me being premenstrual, or is Matthew A extra cloying, fake, determinedly positive and absolutely everywhere in the app comments?

Well I have done Play day one and didn't mind it-quads aching today.
I haven't done day two as yet because Mon is my cardio day.
Baffled as to where the Kearneys are,It must be killing them staying off FB and the App.
Matthew almond is becoming the new over enthusiastic manic super fan, will be wearing short shorts and pouting and posing in his home gym before long!!!!

They must be getting their kicks on an alternate group - they don’t strike me as the type to revoke all social media. You gotta be able to take the internet criticism if you flaunt yourselves so much, though. They were just asking for it. Got Charlie follows day 5 yoga in the bag. Trying to resist eating the big bag of fancy salted almonds I just found in the cupboard.

Yeah the Kearneys have created a void which Matthew is happily filling. He is not as offensive- I just don’t read most of his posts. Tedra is back though and that brought a smile to my face.
The Kearneys will certainly have an alternative group to which they have invited special people and who are sworn to silence .

So long as I don't have to see silly boy's glittering short shorts hitched all the way up to his undies again, I'll cope. The group still seems overstuffed with look-at-meism without them.

Day 3 of Play - really happy to see a tempo day! And if she must start with ten minutes of one exercise, let it be staggered RDL. I used my 18kg kettlebell and it was more than enough. Otherwise I matched her weight exactly for everything. It was a mid-level workout in terms of difficulty and that was OK because it is 27deg here. I'm not really getting the "Epic vibes" claims that keep being made on FB. 45sec and 60sec rests preclude those. I'd say it is harder than Iron Pro but so far a fair bit easier than say PE or Intent.

The negative: It is irritating to have to do hip thrusts as a staple if you don't have that swift "roll the barbell over your knees" set up she does, as 40 sec was not long enough to lug a few DBs onto my lap and get them stable- I had to pause the video three separate times. Better than the interminable 60sec between trisets on Day 2- that was tbh a bit boring and no you're not a barsteward, BB- just very very honest! It was still a bit annoying though and well done to all of you who predicted "lots and lots of fucking hip thrusts" for today's workout. I was so tempted to bypass the finisher.😪

Overall it was OK though. Loved this expression of hers, the "Whose dumbfuck idea was this" face? Yours, Caroline. Yours.😀

I hate hip thrusts - I’m a “dumbbells on lap” balancer too. Seriously considering getting a bar & bumpers….and a bench 🤔

Yeah hip thrusts (or anything requiring a bar) are a bit pointless for me. I'm pretty small and can only balance one weight on me which is my 15kg one so don't think I get much out of them. I also don't have room for any more kit, I just have my dumbbells rolled under the sofa in my living room. The joys of a 2 up 2 down! Would love a bench. I don't even have a stability ball as there isn't anywhere to roll it. We have bugger all floor space.

Well I was quite depressed when I saw the workout, even more hipthrusts than I'd thought so I gave it a miss and did my staple Tuesday workout from Intent, which is a tough leg day with lots of lunges plus 3 sets of RDLs and ONLY 3 sets of hipthusts is enough. There are Bulgarians and rear step lunges which are great for working the glutes. I wish Caroline would remember this.

Enjoyed days one and two. Those trisets were a bit of a bastard in day two, but I don’t see the necessity of a minute long rest. She could’ve fitted in another triset!

Am I the only one who enjoys the rests? I guess I don’t have enough stuff going on in my life 🤣

whatever I did yesterday has hurt my back so think it’s just a yoga day for me today.

I didn’t mind today too much- yes I hated the hip thrusts- I did bridges and took the weight down to 40kg as I seem to be really prone to it and issues atm on any leg day. The bridges hurt a lot- the rest of it was easy enough. No where near as crazy hard as the epics- I guess she is getting older too😂

@Minesril yy I wish she had halved those rests. I like those Unleash upper bodies where she did couple of different supersets in little circuits, maybe with a staple punctuating the workout. 30sec was enough of a rest and the workout didn't drag.

@BigButtons yep! And if she's being truthful when she says she only does walking for cardio now, then it's goodbye to anyone's hopes of new HIIT workouts, because she won't be capable of leading them anymore. But I suspect she has fudged the truth a tiny bit there!

Hmm what is her reasoning for only walking as cardio now?(new to the ap so not seen anything,and already learned to skim read her long newsletters)
Tbh I'm just looking for an excuse not to do cardio! 😀😀😀
I have an active job and walk my dogs(not miles and miles everyday however)but I love crisps and wine(again not everyday 😉) so I feel some cardio(for me) is probably needed.

I’m late to start due to various boring life factors but have done Play 1 and 2. I like the long rests because I do it in the early morning and 60 seconds is long enough to put the kettle on, preheat my flask, put soup in the microwave for my lunch, start a bath running etc. so I can work out and do all my organisation at the same time! They are a bit boring so far but as I’ve said before, I like boring so it’s fine.

I'm just doing the Christmas one now as I had an injury.
I'm honestly happy to just run to get my cardio, but I appreciate that others do miss the HIIT!

Not doing the app but I have increased my cardio. My trousers were hard to do up at the waist after this break and from what I have seen from a sample of one (me), I do need some vigorous cardio more frequently than once a week HIIT plus brisk walks to work/the shops. As I can no longer run on asphalt or for sustained periods due to knee problems, I’ve resorted to brisk walking interspersed with sprints lasting 2-5 mins at a time, albeit not that many during my walk. It does seem to be working, my trousers now do up and I’m finding the sprints a bit easier.

I think what we need definitely changes with age. I know from my watch that the amounts of calories consumed has decreased the older I get, and despite quite vigorous exercise I find it hard to get past 1900 calories. On moderate days I’m at 1500 which to me is a diet amount! Mind you, I should probably admit to my phone that I’ve gained a couple of kilos, that should help bump up my daily rate.

Yeah, I did cardio+yoga/barre instead yesterday and today. This was the first year I have not quite glided into my Christmas dress. Calorie tracking is more precise but I can't stand it (makes me think about food all the time and triggers binges), and there are teenagers around whom I don't want to encourage to obsess over food to that degree.

Lifting is easier and it's most certainly the seductive option at 4am, though. I'll do day 4 tomorrow- back and biceps cluster sets, should be fun, and will use the format to try to lift a bit more than usual. Speaking of, there has been a real uptick on the group and in the app of people questioning what members lift relative to Caroline. Are they serious? She's filming all of these back to back like the machine she is, not to mention that she does this for a living and instructors never lift even close to their max when teaching. Her workouts are going to be on the endurance-lifting side of things rather than even 70% of her max. Whereas the back rows when I get to day 4 will probably be the only ones I do all week- so I can lift my version of heavy.

I’m the same. I need some fairly brisk walking or combat a few times a week to even keep my weight stable. It’s round the trouser area that’s expanding with the CG training. At my age (62) strength matters a lot so I am reconciling myself to the change and to the fact that even with a lot of exercise, my metabolism has slowed. I think this was masked by a year previously filled with a lot of stress and difficulty that meant my weight dropped. When the stress stopped in early summer, the weight went back on, even though I wasn’t eating any more and definitely more healthily.