Cathe Live Review: Barbell Upper Body (#36)

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Cathe Live Review: Barbell Upper Body (#36)

Barbell Upper Body is a really tough, high rep endurance strength workout for the upper body, which ends with a short core section.

This is a very challenging routine and for me definitely wasn’t the most fun one of Cathe’s upper body workouts. There is rather a dread factor with this one, as there are just so many reps for everything. However, Cathe does keep it interesting by varying the rep patterns so you do lots of variations, including 2/2, 4/4/ pulsing, partials, holds etc.

The workout is structured into groups of exercises for different muscle groups. So you start with back (with shoulders and triceps), chest, triceps, biceps and finally shoulders. You generally do several exercises for each body part and sometimes do multiple sets for each exercise. Each exercise really burned out my muscles and as you are often supersetting, with the same muscle group, and there are only short breaks, in between, you really start to fatigue. You do get slightly longer breaks between groups of exercises though so you do get a chance to stretch the hard working muscles out a little bit then. Cathe used a barbell, at various weights, for all of the exercises and when needing light weights, for shoulders, actually used the barbell plates on their own. I used dumbbells throughout and had no issues. As there are so many reps, Cathe used lighter weight than usual, for some of the exercises, and I found I needed to do this too. I really struggled on some of the exercises, such as, pullovers / narrow grip chest press, wide grip bench press and lying tricep extensions and I was only using 12 pounds! I really had to push through on the final reps here.

The workout ends with a short core section on the mat. Cathe used a 5 pound barbell plate here again and I just used dumbbells. There are just four exercises and these rounded out the program nicely, as they target the core in different ways.

Overall, this is a challenging, high rep strength workout for the upper body that will really fry every muscle group.

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The Workout

Barbell Upper Body is a strength endurance workout for the upper body and core.

What You Need to Know

(Rating scale – 1= lowest & 5 = highest).

The Moves

Barbell Upper Body is 43 minutes long and originally aired on 29th January 2015 (#36). The workout starts with a 5:30 minute warm-up, before a quick water break and moving into the first upper body exercise. Cathe used the barbell, with one medium and one small plate on each side (20 pounds), for the warm-up before changing it to 35 pounds (one big & one medium plate each side) for the first exercise. (Note: all of the exercises below are very high rep and use various rep patterns so I have generally not listed reps).

Back (plus shoulders & triceps)

• Overhand rows / underhand rows - 35# barbell (I used 2x 15# Dbs) – 6 sets of 3 rows (overhand) & 5 sets of 3 rows (underhand)

• Deadlifts / deadrows - 35# barbell (I used 2x 15# Dbs)

Change barbell to 25 pounds

• Clean & Press / deadrows / power presses - 25# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) – 2 sets

• Pullovers / narrow grip chest press - 25# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) & step

Chest

Wide grip bench press - 25# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) & step

Push-ups – mat - 3 sets of 8 reps (1stset 2/2 count, 2nd & 3rd set – singles)

Triceps

• Lying overhead tricep extensions - 25# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) & step

• Tricep dips – step – 24 reps (fast). 20 reps (slow w/ leg extensions). 24 reps (fast)

• Lying overhead tricep extensions - 25# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) & step

• Incline tricep push-ups – step & mat – 16 reps (2/2 & 3/1 counts)

Change barbell to 20 pounds

Biceps

• Bicep curls - 20# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs) – 2 sets

Shoulders

• Upright rows / overhead presses – 20# barbell (I used 2x 12# Dbs)

• Front & side raises – two 5# plates only (I used 2x 5# Dbs)

Core on the mat, with one 5# plate, at 37:25 minutes

• Russian twists - one 5# plate (I used 1x 10# Db) & mat

• Sit-up & overhead press – one 5# plate (I used 1x 10# Db) & mat

• 1 Arm sit-up (lay on back, legs straight, one elbow bent & pressed into floor, other arm raised to ceiling; lift torso & reach toward ceiling, keeping other elbow anchored to floor) – one 5# plate (I used 1x 5# Db) & mat

• Rotating side planks – mat – 8 reps each side

The workout ends with a 2 minute cool down and stretch.

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If you liked this workout, check out my review of Cathe Live: Stacked Sets Upper Body (#240) – HERE.

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