My Experience with Caroline Girvan’s “EPIC” Program

If you’re not familiar with Caroline Girvan, let me introduce you to her. Girvan is a certified personal trainer and mother of two making waves in YouTube’s fitness community. Her first video was published a mere 10 months ago, and since then, Girvan’s channel has grown to 665,000 subscribers. I stumbled upon her channel in September, and haven’t looked back since.

There are lots of fitness influencers out there. What sets Caroline Girvan apart is her focus on how fitness makes her feel, rather than how she looks. She doesn’t diet, she doesn’t count calories, she simply fuels her body with nutritious foods and creates workouts that make her feel strong. These workouts have certainly made me feel strong! 

I recently completed her ten-week EPIC Program, a thoughtfully crafted schedule of 50 different workouts (that’s right- no repeat videos!) designed to increase strength, coordination, and overall fitness. At the beginning of the program, I really struggled. Each workout is around 45 minutes long, with some as long as an hour. The first week was very tough, despite the fact I only used 5lb dumbbells in each hand. I am proud to say over the course of the ten weeks, I have gradually improved to 8lbs, and now 10, and hopefully 12 in the near future! 

Aside from the physical strength gain, this program has also given me something invaluable: an understanding of how exercise fits into my life and makes me feel my best. I worked out a lot previously to this program, but it was often lots of cardio that I dreaded. There’s a time and place for cardio, and sometimes it’s fun! For me, however, the slower pace of strength training and focus on specific muscle groups has shown me how to exercise more effectively and excited me to continue to push myself further. 

The program is split into ten weeks, with five workouts each week and two rest days. Typically, three of the days focus on a specific muscle group, one day is full body strength, and the last day of the week is HIIT. If you aren’t familiar with HIIT, it is high intensity interval training. Essentially you work really hard for a short period of time, take an even shorter rest, and then continue. I would be lying if I didn’t mention HIIT was my least favorite in the moment, but I felt amazing afterwards! I also did notice some changes in my physique, such as a more defined upper body, which has always been the type of workout I struggled with the most prior to this program. While the visible progress is certainly rewarding, it doesn’t compare to the change in my attitude surrounding exercise. It’s easy to preach that exercise is meant to make us feel good, but actually believing it and actually feeling energized and strong after exercise is much harder. This program has helped me with that immensely.

Lucky for me, and the community Caroline Girvan has created on YouTube, Girvan has begun uploading her EPIC II Program, a continuation of the program I just completed. I can’t recommend her workouts enough, you can find her channel here.