If you’re familiar with fitness routines, you’ve most likely heard the term “circuit training.” Only athletes once practiced this form of fitness, but recently personal trainers and people who regularly follow a fitness program have been incorporating circuit training into their own programs.
Circuit training is an ideal fitness tool for those seeking bodies with less fat and more conditioning. This form of fitness combines interval training with resistance training, making it the best of both worlds.
A traditional round of circuit training requires you to perform a group of exercises for a particular number of repetitions or a certain period of time. You move from one exercise to the next until all the exercises are completed. After a short period of rest, another round is done on the same circuit. Up to six rounds of training can be done in one session.
The traditional form of circuit training is effective, but for those wanting to take this to a higher level of fitness and make the routine more challenging, metabolic circuit training is the key.
Metabolic circuit training begins with one round of training, where ten reps of each exercise are performed. Do at least four exercises, and do not rest until all reps of all exercises are completed. With short rest after the first round, go immediately into the second round and drop one repetition from each exercise.
Continue with this trend each time you begin a new round, each time dropping another rep from each exercise. By the tenth round, you’ll be performing only one rep of each of your four exercises.
This updated form of training is so effective because there is little rest between rounds. You are encouraged to move quickly, because finishing a round so that you can progress to another and do less will naturally motivate you to speed up. You will finish fast and strong while tapering off by not doing as many reps.
Some ideal exercises for incorporating into your metabolic circuit routine are familiar and easy to do. Push-ups, inverted body rows, dumbbell front squats, and alternating lunges work well for this routine. If you’re somewhat of a beginner to the fitness world, you can modify the exercises to accommodate your level of fitness. You can do push-ups on your knees or start by doing only six rounds at first.