The Truth About Circuit Training
If you're like me, sometimes being on the treadmill for an hour is just not the most appealing thing in the world. But despite the fad on cardio, there are other ways to get your heart rate just as high while burning the same calories!
Circuit training involves completing short intervals of an exercise in a specific order at a high intensity, and then repeating the combination. The great thing about these workouts is that the most your doing an exercise for at once is a minute, so there's no way to really get bored. The high intensity bursts from the repetitive exercises keeps your heart rate up burning calories.
Aside from not getting bored during these workouts, they usually don't last as long as your typical cardio workout which means you're out of the gym faster! Who doesn't love the sound of that? The workouts usually consist of some type of cardio burst, mixed with body weight exercises. There are circuits that involve weights, however I tend to stay away from these because I feel like all of the picking the weights up and putting them down just slows you down, which will make your heart rate decrease.
I could type all day to you about the details of circuit training, but we all know that what you want to see is what kind of circuits to do! Here are some examples of simple circuits that I think everyone can start with:
1) Run 1 minute, sprint 30 seconds, 15 push ups, 20 jumping jacks, 20 walking lunges (repeat 3-5 times)
2) 20 step ups, 25 jumping jacks, 15 switch lunges, 25 mountain climbers (repeat 3-5 times)
3) 20 push ups, 10 assisted pull ups, high knees for 1 minute, 15 jumping sumo lunges (repeat 3-5 times)
The combination of any 2 of these can make a complete workout for your day! I hope you try them out and enjoy!
I LOVE CIRCUIT TRAINING!! I think I like it so much because I grew up participating in physical activity with circuit training, whether it was for a sport on a team, on my own, or with a trainer and or coach. I definitely agree about the treadmill getting boring. Circuit training helps keep you up to date with everything you can be doing for the all the muscles in your body. The intensity from circuit training in certainly a high for me. When i do circuit training I don't lose energy, I gain it and look forward to what my next workout consists.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you blogged about this! I have gotten in a "working out rut" where I've just been getting bored with my workouts and looking for something new. I have done circuit training before but after reading this blog, I am definitely going to give this a try again! Luckily for us, our school offers pretty impressive gyms so this will be easily attainable and will definitely help keep my workouts interesting so that I don't lose motivation!
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed your blog this semester, Morgan! I've fallen into a run since Fall Break, but I'm getting back into it starting tomorrow! You've got me sold on interval training and spinning! Thanks for inspiring me towards a healthier lifestyle this semester!
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