In essence, with circuit training, the benefits are twofold. First off, you can be way more creative with your workouts, since circuit training is all about mixing and matching various exercises that target all sorts of different muscles at once; as opposed to targeting one muscle group at a time like more traditional strength training. This format takes the monotony out of your workout since the options are endless (I will give you some sample workouts to try below). The second, and most important benefit of circuit training- is its positive effect on your body. As a result of exposing your body to a new different workout each time around, you prevent the “plateau” effect. A fitness plateau is when our body stops changing and improving as it gets used to the same workout and starts to figure out how to prevent change. Remember your body is designed to want to stay the same. It resists change. This is a survival instinct built in us from the beginning of time. The body fights to adapt to whatever state it can figure out and get used to. This is a good thing if you’re stuck in a desperate survival situation, but a bad thing when it comes to fitness gains. In this case, you want those changes, you want to get stronger, or lean out, whatever your goals are. For this reason keeping the body guessing is a good thing in order to reach those gains.
A good example of a routine like this is completing 30 seconds of 4 or 5 exercises back to back, going through the circuit for a set number of rounds, say maybe 4. Start with jumping jacks, then pushups, air squats, burpees and finish with dumbbell shoulder press. That’s just an idea but you get the point. You can be creative and the possibilities are endless. So go ahead and try this circuit or make out your own. But most importantly.. go get yourself moving!
- Jumping jacks
- Pushups
- Air Squats
- Burpees
- DB shoulder Press
