Caroline Girvan Iron

[Anonymous]

Has anyone done this program and care to share your experience?

I am a fit 40-something former athlete who stopped doing much strength training beyond weekly barre classes after having kids. Not seeking to lose weight, just rebuild muscle and cure strength.

Curious about gains in strength and details about what weights you used (and if you leveled up and by how much) as well as if you followed her 5x a week schedule with designated rest days or took another approach, and how these choices impacted your results.

Also interested in what you did after-- Iron again with higher weights? Another CG program? Something else? Took a break and just maintained for a while?

TIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this program and care to share your experience?

I am a fit 40-something former athlete who stopped doing much strength training beyond weekly barre classes after having kids. Not seeking to lose weight, just rebuild muscle and cure strength.

Curious about gains in strength and details about what weights you used (and if you leveled up and by how much) as well as if you followed her 5x a week schedule with designated rest days or took another approach, and how these choices impacted your results.

Also interested in what you did after-- Iron again with higher weights? Another CG program? Something else? Took a break and just maintained for a while?

TIA

Huge CG fan! Have done YouTube and app Iron, loved both. If YT, tryFuel after. It’s more cardio. I swapped HITT day for yoga. If using her app, do Beastmode after.

Yes, I saw gains but even better, I felt stronger and sexy.

I’ve stopped for the summer because I developed some shoulder impingement. I swim 30 min daily and hope To be back to CG in the Fall with Iron again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this program and care to share your experience?

I am a fit 40-something former athlete who stopped doing much strength training beyond weekly barre classes after having kids. Not seeking to lose weight, just rebuild muscle and cure strength.

Curious about gains in strength and details about what weights you used (and if you leveled up and by how much) as well as if you followed her 5x a week schedule with designated rest days or took another approach, and how these choices impacted your results.

Also interested in what you did after-- Iron again with higher weights? Another CG program? Something else? Took a break and just maintained for a while?

TIA

Huge CG fan! Have done YouTube and app Iron, loved both. If YT, tryFuel after. It’s more cardio. I swapped HITT day for yoga. If using her app, do Beastmode after.

Yes, I saw gains but even better, I felt stronger and sexy.

I’ve stopped for the summer because I developed some shoulder impingement. I swim 30 min daily and hope To be back to CG in the Fall with Iron again.

OP here and thanks! I am on Week 3 of the YT version of Iron and loving it -- I feel like it really stepped up this week and I struggled more to keep up but am really feeling the work today on my rest day. Will try Fuel next and love the suggestion to swap yoga for the HITT -- I have been doing yoga for my active rest day during Iron and it's been great for my joints. I sometimes have some alignment issues that can flare when I start a new exercise program but I guess the years of PT have paid off becaus so far I've felt great. I think it helps that she keeps it very simple and there are not a lot of highly complex movements -- I think the bulgarian split squats are about as technically tricky as it's gotten and I've done those before with my PT so feel confident in my form.

Anyway happy to be jumping on the CG bandwagon!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this program and care to share your experience?

I am a fit 40-something former athlete who stopped doing much strength training beyond weekly barre classes after having kids. Not seeking to lose weight, just rebuild muscle and cure strength.

Curious about gains in strength and details about what weights you used (and if you leveled up and by how much) as well as if you followed her 5x a week schedule with designated rest days or took another approach, and how these choices impacted your results.

Also interested in what you did after-- Iron again with higher weights? Another CG program? Something else? Took a break and just maintained for a while?

TIA

Huge CG fan! Have done YouTube and app Iron, loved both. If YT, tryFuel after. It’s more cardio. I swapped HITT day for yoga. If using her app, do Beastmode after.

Yes, I saw gains but even better, I felt stronger and sexy.

I’ve stopped for the summer because I developed some shoulder impingement. I swim 30 min daily and hope To be back to CG in the Fall with Iron again.

OP here and thanks! I am on Week 3 of the YT version of Iron and loving it -- I feel like it really stepped up this week and I struggled more to keep up but am really feeling the work today on my rest day. Will try Fuel next and love the suggestion to swap yoga for the HITT -- I have been doing yoga for my active rest day during Iron and it's been great for my joints. I sometimes have some alignment issues that can flare when I start a new exercise program but I guess the years of PT have paid off becaus so far I've felt great. I think it helps that she keeps it very simple and there are not a lot of highly complex movements -- I think the bulgarian split squats are about as technically tricky as it's gotten and I've done those before with my PT so feel confident in my form.

Anyway happy to be jumping on the CG bandwagon!

PP here: Her YT beast mode is only 2 weeks but can be doubled for a nice month program. Her calastetics is killer. And I enjoyed the Advent series, shorter workouts but you can always add abs. Not a fan of Epic programs but others seem to like.

She’s probably one of the best YT trainers out there. Probably because she became popular by accident. She was a PT and put her content on YT for her clients during COVID. People found her and she took off. Very organic.

Can you tell I’m a fan? Enjoy!

[Anonymous]

I have not done the Iron program, but am a CG fan as well so have gotta jump in. I too consider myself a fit late 40s something “person”. I don’t really know if I’d classify myself as an athlete since I have never done anything competitively, but have been doing some form of fitness all my life. I fell into CG earlier this year after another online program got bought up and lost its pull. And I absolutely love the programming. So much that after just 2 weeks, I paid for the app. Which is crazy well priced. I started with her cluster series on the app which was awesome and got me hooked. From there I did her newest Intent which is very form focused with heavier weights and no cardio days. I def think it made me stronger. I recently finished that and am trying the beast mode program on the app (I think it differs a bit from the YouTube one) and am really liking the addition of the cardio days. They wipe me out and I don’t feel so fit anymore. Lol. CG is an amazing athlete. And seems to just float through all these hardcore sessions without a bead of sweat in sight!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have not done the Iron program, but am a CG fan as well so have gotta jump in. I too consider myself a fit late 40s something “person”. I don’t really know if I’d classify myself as an athlete since I have never done anything competitively, but have been doing some form of fitness all my life. I fell into CG earlier this year after another online program got bought up and lost its pull. And I absolutely love the programming. So much that after just 2 weeks, I paid for the app. Which is crazy well priced. I started with her cluster series on the app which was awesome and got me hooked. From there I did her newest Intent which is very form focused with heavier weights and no cardio days. I def think it made me stronger. I recently finished that and am trying the beast mode program on the app (I think it differs a bit from the YouTube one) and am really liking the addition of the cardio days. They wipe me out and I don’t feel so fit anymore. Lol. CG is an amazing athlete. And seems to just float through all these hardcore sessions without a bead of sweat in sight!!

I’m PP, I was using the app until my shoulder issue. Good to know about intent, I really prefer the weights over cardio.

Yes, CG is crazy strong and her programming is phenomenal. OP, you won’t be disappointed.

[Anonymous]

OP here and you guys are kind of selling me on the app. I'll probably exhaust the YT programming first because one of the reasons I found CG is that I already subscribe to another online workout program (Peloton) and was getting bored and feeling stagnant. I heard about CG and started mixing her heavy lifting programs in with my Peloton workouts and was immediately like "this is a million times better and it's FREE." I also love her story with just throwing workouts on YT for clients during Covid and then getting millions of followers because she's just really really good at structuring workouts and workout plans. Her success is incredibly well earned.

[Anonymous]

I love CG. I did Iron on YT a few times and I just bought the app and am working through Iron on the app. It is great. I plan to do one of the other programs after Iron. She is fantastic and the app is easy to use.

[Anonymous]

^^PP here. There is plenty of content on YT so you don't need to buy the app, but the app is the only place where new content is released.

[Anonymous]

I will offer up another YT trainer I really like: Courtney Anderson. My one ding on Caroline Girvan (who I think is really phenomenal) is that I prefer to do a slightly longer workout, say 45 minutes or so. I have really liked Courtney Anderson's 50 minute programs that are mostly weights with short bursts of cardio/HIIT.