Want a great workout to keep boredom at bay? It means mixing up what you do for exercise, but it can also mean mixing it up even within the same workout. Circuit training is a series of exercises performed one after the other where no two consecutive exercises work the same muscle group.
This is an effective method of exercising to improve your strength, flexibility, endurance and cardiovascular fitness. Do one repetition, and then with little or no rest, switch to a different exercise for an entirely different muscle group. This ensures you work out your entire body and get a cardiovascular workout because as you switch to the next machine or exercise without much of a break — your heart has to work just that much harder, which increases your heart rate, giving a nice aerobic edge to your workout.
The women’s gym “Curves” made this popular claiming you could get in, get a workout and get out in thirty minutes. Their target demographic is the mom on the run with little time for herself. Curves is a good place to start if you’re new to exercise because you don’t really have to think about anything, you follow the routine on the machines and you’re done. (But you’ll eventually have to change it up again, because you want to keep your body challenged by the exercises.)
Circuit training is highly versatile because it can be:
- toned down or ramped up for all levels of fitness or age.
- custom designed to accommodate recovery from certain injuries (i.e., you can avoid certain exercises).
- made sport specific to be a training mechanism to prepare for almost any sport.
You can customize your circuit so it emphasizes either upper or lower body, or whole body. Also, you can make it an entirely cardiovascular workout (otherwise called interval training – but this an entirely separate article!).
Always start any circuit workout with a 5- to 10-minute warm up and end with a 5-minute cool down. You can repeat the circuit 2 to 3 times or do it just once to get a quick workout. Complete the exercises in quick succession of each other. Try not to take a break until you complete the entire circuit once. If you must, stop, do so only for 30 seconds or better still use this time to stretch the muscles you’ve just worked.
- Dumbbell Bench Press 1×15 (works your chest, biceps and triceps)
- Lie on a bench with dumbbells in either hand.
- Bring dumbbells to shoulder height, level with the rest of your body, palms facing skyward.
- Raise dumbbells to the sky, straightening your arms, but not locking elbows.
- Return to starting position.
- Plank Pose 30 to 60 seconds (works your core)
- Lie on your front, bring your toes under and support your upper body on your elbows and forearms and lift your body off the floor so you form a straight line from your shoulders to your toes. Don’t let your belly sag toward the floor.
- Dumbbell Standing Lunges 1×15 each leg (works your quads and glutes)
- Stand with a dumbbell in each hand.
- Lunge forward with your left leg, so your left knee is directly over your toes (never in front of it) in a more or less 90 degree angle.
- Return to starting position and repeat with right leg.
- Bicep Curl 1×15 each arm (works your biceps and shoulders)
- Stand with your arms by your side with a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing forward.
- Bend your arms at the elbow, while ensuring your upper arms don’t move
- from the side of your body; bring your forearms up toward your shoulder.
- Return your arm to your side and repeat with the other arm.
- Lying Row 1×15 (works your back, biceps and triceps)
- Lie face forward on a bench or a stability ball with dumbbells in each hand.
- Pull the dumbbells to your sides until your triceps are either in line with your back or slightly behind the horizontal line of your back.
- Return to starting position which is your arms nearly straight in front of you with elbows just slightly bent.
- Traditional Crunch 1×15 (works your abdomen)
- Lie straight on your back with your legs stretched out in front of you.
- Place your hands behind your head so your fingers just lightly touch the sides of your head, with your palms facing skyward.
- Looking at the ceiling above you, raise your upper body just a few inches off the ground, so your elbows are still straight out toward the sides. Your eyes should never leave the ceiling; if you’re looking at the wall or anywhere aside from the ceiling, you do not have correct form.
To create your own circuit, simply first identify the muscles you want to work and then find a couple of exercises for each of those muscles. String them together so no two exercises work the same muscle groups in succession (but there’s no rule preventing you from having 2 to 3 exercises for the same muscle group, just space it out). You can have as many as 20 exercises in a circuit. Can you think of a better way to Change, Challenge and Confuse?