AB Workout Equipment: Cathe Friedrich's Slow & Heavy Series Review

This series is unlike anything else that I have or have seen anywhere else.Cathe Friedrich has come up with a workout series that is designed to build maximum muscular strength, using a slower lifting style. This series is great to use if you have reached any fitness plateaus or just want something different to shake things up.This series is broken up into 3 workouts, legs & shoulders, chest & back, and triceps & biceps.Many of the exercises are done in 3 sets of 8 reps, using a 6-2 count.Training in this manner eliminates most of the momentum, which is great for building strength.Each workout also has it's own warmup and cooldown/stretch, plus they clock in at around an hour. For this workout you will need a barbell and assorted dumbells, which can be substituted if you do not have a barbell.A step is also used for some of the incline upper body work.

The first workout is legs & shoulders, starting with a warmup then moving into leg work.You will warmup or pre-exhaust your legs with a set of front lunges before moving into 3 sets of squats, then you will do a set of reverse lunges, preparing you for 3 sets of static lunges.Side lunges are next, again preparing you for a some heavy plie squat work before finishing out with some weighted calf work.Shoulders follow the leg work, gone are the pre-exhausting sets though, just strictly slow/heavy for this and the rest of the upper body workouts.For shoulders you will do front raises, side lateral raises, rear deltoid raises and seated overhead presses.Finishing out this set are a set of side lying external rotations which target the rotator cuff.

The second workout is for chest and back, for chest you will see mainly bench presses and pec flies, but both are done on a flat surface first, then in an incline position.Finishing out this muscle group are a set of slow/heavy pushups.The back exercises include double arm rows, pullovers and deadlifts, plus some non weighted exercises such as supermans and plank work.The planks are tough as they are held for quite a well, they are done in three different positions, though Cathe will give modifications for those who need them.

The final workout is for triceps & biceps.The tricep work consists of seated overhead presses, lying tricep extensions, kickbacks and tricep dips, the dips are especially tough after all the preceding work.For biceps you will do tradition dumbell curls, hammer curls, barbell curls and then some forearm work with barbell wrist curls and reverse curls.

Overall this is a great set if you are looking for something different, it does take a lot of mental focus as you have to concentrate much more on what you are doing.Cathe herself even recommends that this series is done in shorter rotations because it is so mentally taxing.Cathe does a excellent job instructing, she is great at form pointers and well as showing modifications and alternate options.This series is a little older than Cathe's current offerings (2001) but I think it's one of her best.5 stars for this one.

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Product Description:
Legs & Shoulders Format: warm - up 3 1/2 min, legs/buttocks 30 min., Shoulders 31 min., stretch 2 min * Chest & Back Format: warm - up 3 min, chest 26 1/2 min., Back 18 min., Superman 3 min., Planks 6 min., stretch 2 min. * Triceps & Biceps Format: warm - up 2 1/2 min, triceps 23 min., Biceps 24 min., Abs 7 ' min., Stretch

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