Circuit Training Offers Excellent Balance To a Workout

It's hard to read about physical fitness online without scrolling across the practice of circuit training. Many experts recommend adding circuit training into a person's usual exercise routine to create a great balance between strength and cardiovascular health. It doesn't matter if a person is a top-level athlete or a mom staying healthy for her children. Everyone can benefit from a little more circuit training in their exercise routine.

How does a person get started though? What even is circuit training? The reality is that a little bit of knowledge is a good place to start if you want to include circuit training into your health routine. This article is a good place to start and will go over some of the basics. 

What Is Circuit Training?

Circuit training typically comprises 8 to 10 exercise stations. Each station targets specific muscle groups of the body for a specified number of repetitions. When practicing circuit training, the participant starts at the first station and completes the desired number of repetitions. Then, they move onto the second station without taking a break in between the two stations. The participant will continue through all of their exercise stations without resting in between.

Depending on the level of endurance the participant is trying to achieve, they may repeat the entire circuit after the 10th station, or they may take a short rest before starting the next circuit. Each station can be any type of exercise, including banded, free weights, bodyweight, or even machines. The number of repetitions and the load for each station will highly depend on the individual's fitness goals.

Benefits Of Circuit Training

While many people get excited to start a new exercise routine, most won't last more than a couple of weeks. This isn't because they can't physically perform the exercises. Rather, most people cite their lack of follow-through with a consistent exercise routine to boredom and time constraints. When a person is bored, it's easy to skip over their exercise routine to do something more exciting. Suddenly, what started as skipping one day of exercise turns into a missed week. Before they know it, they haven't exercised for months.

Circuit training is a great way to fight boredom when it comes to getting physically fit. This exercise approach allows for the participant to set up many different exercises to perform throughout their workout. Since each station is focused on strengthening a particular muscle group, one can choose from a variety of known exercises to target that group for their circuit training routine. Each day, the participant can choose different exercises to target the muscle group. This makes working out interesting, as the participant is constantly getting the opportunity to program different exercises.

When it comes to time constraints, we all have them. Circuit training offers the excellent benefit of getting a lot of work done in a small amount of time. Since there are minimal rest periods, a person is able to bang out 8 to 10 stations in a matter of minutes. Compare this to traditional weightlifting, where participants have a lot of downtime between sets, and it's easy to see why circuit training is becoming so popular.

Common Exercises Used in Circuit Training

Establishing a circuit training workout is all about programming. A person needs to have their exercise stations, loads, and repetitions picked out ahead of time. This preparation will ensure that a person can walk into the gym, perform their circuit training, and head home in a decent amount of time.

When prepping a circuit training routine for an upcoming workout, it's important to consider what muscle groups will be exercised. We're going to share with you some common exercises that can be performed at any station to target specific parts of the body:

Upper Body

• Dips
• Press-Ups
• Pull-Ups
• Overhead Press
• Seated Cable Rows

Core

• Crunches
• Sit-Ups
• Planks
• Ab Rollouts
• Seated Twists

Lower Body

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Step-Ups
• Box Jumps
• Bulgarian Split Squats

When programming the perfect circuit, one must consider the placement of each exercise. It's best to rotate through the main areas of the body. For example, a great nine station circuit would be made up of exercises in the following order:

• Upper Body
• Core
• Lower Body
• Upper Body
• Core
• Lower Body
• Upper Body
• Core
• Lower Body

By programming exercises in this fashion, each bodily section has time to rest. After completing an exercise for the upper body, it has time to rest while one completes an exercise for the core and another for the lower body. Programming in this way allows the participant to maximize their strength gain throughout the entire circuit training session.