Your Journey to Losing all That Unwanted Body Fat in as Little as 12 Weeks Starts Here…

10.08.2011 04:53:07

Carlos Dobson

Traditional Circuit Training has long been thought of as a bunch of women in leotards prancing around a room lifting tiny wee dumbbells and performing over choreographed aerobic moves but nothing could be further from the truth

These days Circuits are the go to system for not just fat loss but fitness and also muscle and strength gains meaning they are often used by elite athletes as part of their conditioning program. They key is learning how to utilize this principle of training to suit your goals.

Old school circuits usually involved as many as 10-12 different stations, usually machine based, and a timer which went off every minute or so. This meant during that minute you performed as many reps of a weight as possible (usually 50+) before moving to the next exercise at the buzzer. Often we alternated between a strength based exercise i.e. chest or shoulder press; and an aerobic exercise such as the bike or skipping.

This style of circuit is fine and will work well to help increase endurance and also promote fat loss through the buildup of lactic acid (High levels of blood lactate promotes the release of growth hormone which aids in both fat loss and muscle growth – a double edged sword) but you should not limit yourself to this type and you do not always have a gym full of fancy machines at your disposal to crank out a quick circuit session.

The modern circuit is a lot simpler, instead of so many exercises often we often concentrate on smaller circuits with more repeats. Rest is taken after each circuit and can be varied depending on fitness levels or desired outcomes.

To put together a circuit we work on 4 main areas

• Upper body
• Lower body
• Core and abs
• Full Body/Combination

We select an exercise for each of these areas then perform each exercise for 30-120 seconds with little to rest between exercise and 1-2 minutes rest after the circuit, and then we repeat again for the set number of circuits.

Sample Fat Loss Circuit for Beginners

The following are 2 very simple fat loss circuits you can perform at home with NO equipment. All you need is a clock, a towel and a couple of square metres to move around in:

Circuit A

• Push ups
• Lunges
• Core hold
• High Knee Running

Circuit B

• Inverted/Towel Row
• Sumo Squat
• Basic Crunch
• Burpies

Start with Circuit A and perform each exercise for 30 seconds with no rest between exercises, rest 30 seconds then repeat circuit, repeat 3-4 times before moving on to Circuit B.

Once completed perform static stretches for 12-15 mins. You can download a PDF copy of The 5 Secrets System Static Stretching Guide from my website here:

FREE STRETCH GUIDE DOWNLOAD

8 Awesome Advantages of Circuit Training

• Perfect for ladies not wanting to ‘bulk up’
• Can be easily structured to provide a whole body workout.
• Do not require expensive gym equipment.
• Participants normally work in small groups, allowing beginners to be guided by more experienced individuals, as well as benefiting from the supervision of the instructor.
• Can be adapted for any size workout area.
• Can be customized for specificity; easy to adapt to your sport.
• Dramatically increase fitness in a short period of time
• Allows you to work the full body easily if you are short on time

Disadvantages of Circuit Training

The one and only disadvantage of traditional circuit training is that you may struggle to build a lot of muscle and strength but by modifying rest and reps this can easily be fixed. We can reduce the rep range to between 5-12 and increase rest after each circuit to 60-300seconds and problem solved.

Remember if you are using circuits for fat loss like I do you, still need to keep a check on your nutrition or you could be missing out on all the benefits of your training.

If you are in need of some fresh workout ideas, I have put together a small collection of my favourite Bodyweight Circuits and they will be available to you guys soon so keep and eye on your inbox over the next couple of weeks.

Carlos Dobson

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