Saturday, March 7, 2009

What is Circuit Training?

By Richard Black

So you have decided that it is time to start going to the gym regularly. You are ready to start working out, but where do you begin?

Perhaps you want to try bicep curls first because you are curious about how strong your biceps are. Or maybe you want to do a leg press because your arms are tired from working all day and you want to give them a rest before you start those exercises. Maybe, rather than all of those, you want to try a treadmill for a half hour first to burn away some of the calories that you gained from that cheeseburger you ate on the way over.

When you start working out, these questions may go through your mind every time you open the gym doors. But this uncertainty can lead to inefficient workouts, skipping exercises, and failing to achieve the results you want because you went in a poor order on one particular day.

To solve this, many trainers teach what is known as "circuit training." Circuit training is a pre-specified exercise routine that involves moving from exercise to exercise in a specific order over a specific amount of time (as as though you are moving through a circuit).

Circuit Training Techniques

Circuit training gives you significantly less time to rest, and often involves working out at such an extreme pace that many people receive an aerobic exercise even though they are not technically doing any aerobic training methods. However, just because they give you less time to rest does not mean that circuit training is only for in shape, experienced bodybuilders.

On the contrary, circuit training requires significantly less repetitions (which are generally required with standardized weight lifting) where you are trading excess work (lifting with repetitions) for faster work (no repetitions, faster moving through the workout). Because there is less resting, many people experience some impressive results as though they had rested and completed a repetition.

Benefits of Circuit Training

There are two well known benefits for circuit training:

1) Time 2) Efficiency

Because you are quickly moving through every workout, you save a great deal of time overall. If you are often on a particularly busy schedule, this time saved can be substantial, and you can cut your time at the gym down significantly.

The other is efficiency - By rushing from exercise to exercise in a specific order, you are not wasting any time allowing your muscles to relax or harden up. Instead, you are making sure that they are constantly being worked out as you move from machine to machine, tiring them more and more in the process.

Circuit training does require a less crowded gym (so that you can get each machine when you need it), a lot of planning, and a commitment to moving to the next workout right away no matter how exhausted you are. But for those that are on a busy schedule or want to see more results in shorter time, circuit training is one of the best workout courses you can put yourself through.

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