Circuit Training Guide and Circuit Training Techniques!
When done correctly, circuit training is an effective means of losing weight, developing endurance and strength, improving muscle tone and enhancing overall health and fitness. Check out this guide and learn more about circuit training.
What Is It?
Developed by G.T. Anderson and R.E. Morgan from the University of Leeds in 1953, circuit training is workout done by performing exercises in a sequence and then only rest when you have completed a set of the exercise.
For success, circuit training is following a set of guidelines, enabling an informed program design. In every station, one has to make eight up to 20 repetitions, and then he has to take a rest of at most 30 seconds before progressing onto the next.
Circuit training is very effective since it combines resistance training and cardiovascular fitness, wherein the initial routines were arranged in a circle, and the muscles trained aren’t the same but are alternating muscle groups. Through circuit training, you will gain both the benefits of cardiovascular and resistance training benefits.
For a start in circuit training, you may use a wide range of fitness equipment and tools, which shouldn’t really be expensive, including dumbbells, jump rope, surgical tubing, medicine balls, weight-training machines and even your body weight. One circuit may be composed of six up to 15 stations based on your level and goals, such as weight loss.
In this type of training, it is important to note about designing the right circuit based on your goals. To melt fat while firming muscles, you should perform strength moves for a minute in each station selected, in which a cardio should be included between each strength routine. You should complete the circuit three times for the best results. For this session, you may be able to burn between 270 and 360 calories for 36 minutes.
What Are the Perks of Performing Circuit Exercises?
- You will get maximum results without spending long hours, as you also have the choice of setting up as many stations as you desire. You can continue working out until your time runs out, so whether you only have 15 minutes or one hour, you can have the best results in scorching muscles, developing endurance or blasting fat, among other goals you have from the start. With circuit exercises, you don’t waste another minute due to waiting for your favorite machine to become available because circuit training allows you to swap out a station and use a different exercise in order to achieve the same results.
- Circuit training lets you challenge your body by allowing it to perform as many exercises within a timeframe. The more it works the more muscles you develop or strengthen. Unlike training in a gym where you will be wandering around, watching others perform workouts or simply winging your exercises, circuit training allows you to use every second within the allotted time by transferring from one station to another, based on how you designed your stations to be. Indeed, circuit training helps in performing a whole body workout as it works every minor and major muscle group.
- Another major benefit of circuit training is that it improves your body’s ability to produce force due to enhanced muscular strength. It also helps in developing muscle endurance, in which your body improves its ability to perform work or an activity over time. This indicates how many stair flights you can climb before you feel tiredness in your legs, an example. Because you will be performing up to 20 repetitions in every station without so much rest, you’re forcing your muscles to push harder and stick with the training no matter how fatigue they are getting—endurance.
- It also burns 30 percent more calories and offers more cardio benefits than using a traditional weight workout because it enables you to combine cardio and strength routines that sculpt muscles and burn fat at the same time. In one minute, you can burn 10 calories with it. If you love cardio and weights, circuit training is for you without you having to force yourself to do only one of them in a session but you combine them for effective results. Circuit workouts offer you the best of both cardio and strength because you will be able to mix cardio with weightlifting for a complete workout experience.
- Circuit training also improves your overall body composition, which is the percentage of your body weight made of fat because it burns calories and builds muscles. With an enhanced muscle mass, you can boost the total amount of calories burned during exercise and rest. For success, you may want to start program composed of at least one training session in a week, and then add weekly sessions as you progress. Increasing the weightlifting load can support your goals of continual fitness improvement throughout the program.
Circuit training offers you plenty of benefits, and it can be performed using six to eight exercises using alternate cardio and strength exercises. Each exercise should last for 20 to 30 seconds and with a 30-second rest or recovery in between routines. You can do three to five sets with a three minute of recovery for each set.
It can be a four-week cycle made of an easy, medium, hard and rest/recovery week while the workload can be changed by changing the duration, number of exercises, repetitions and recovery/rest time. You can accomplish a training session twice a week with a minimum of 48 hours or two days of rest between each session.
This type of training plays an important role especially during the offseason for athletes because it serves as a means of maintaining their general fitness during times they are avoiding high physical demands of in-season games/sport. For them, circuit training is also a way of segueing into higher programs of strengthening.
Nonetheless, it can be an effective method of exercise for everyone looking to enhance both cardio and physical strength for sports or function. If you were looking to use it as a program, consult your doctor for proper and thorough physical assessment of your fitness to engaging in high intensity, short circuit training programs.
