Should You Do Circuit Training for Fat Loss?
Circuit training is all the rage lately and supposedly one of the best ways to burn fat. Considering even the military is at it, we can say that it must be an effective way of training. But what exactly is circuit training and how do you implement it in your workout regime?
What Exactly Is Circuit Training?
Circuit training is a for of exercise where you do one exercise for anything between half a minute and five full minutes, before moving on to another. You begin at a certain spot and move on without breaks to the next one, until you have done the full circuit.
“Some classes alternate an aerobic activity (like stepping or stationary cycling) with a muscle-strengthening activity (like using weight machines). Others focus exclusively on muscle toning or aerobic exercise.” – For Dummies
There are various benefits to circuit training, including they fact that it burns a whole lot of calories. Best of all, you will only experience moderate exhaustion and you don’t have to be an expert in all things workout and fitness in order to take part. Sounds like a dream come true! Let’s take a look at some of the latest forms of circuit training that you could get involved in.
Military Fitness
As stated previously, even the military uses circuit training to get their soldiers in tip top shape. This shows just how beneficial it actually is, because you will struggle to find anybody in the army who is overweight, let alone obese, after they have gone through basic training.
“This workout is a 20-minute workout that will take you to your maximum physical effort as well as your maximum heart rate. The object of this workout is not to rest in between exercises. You will see that one minute of a particular exercise will burn out the targeted muscle group as well as increase your heart rate to a fat and sugar burning zone.” – Millitary.com
In this particular exercise, you will bench press for one minute (or do push ups), followed by a minute of squats and another minute of pull-downs or ups. Next, three minutes of jogging or biking and one minute of military press. Then a minute of lunges, a minute of bicep curls and another three minutes of jogging or biking. Without taking a break, you will do one minute of leg extensions, then one minute of leg curls, two minutes of sit ups and two minutes of crunches. Then stretch and you’re done.
Using Strength Training to Burn Fat
There are various ways to use circuit training to burn fat. However, it has been shown that using a variety of strength training exercises is the best way to achieve this.
“Strength exercises performed back to back. I like to set these up with one exercise per major movement pattern( horizontal push and pull, vertical push and push, lunge and or squat, some type of core exercise, such as a plank, chopping or anti-rotation exercise.” – Straight 2 the Core
You can also try mixing strength training with high intensity conditioning or perform metabolic circuit training. Each of these types of workouts are designed to get your metabolic rate going faster than the speed of light, meaning you will burn fat quicker than you had thought possible.
What makes circuit training so great for fat loss is that it is very easy to master. Making sure it is metabolic circuit training, however, will really get the power of fat burning going.
“You will not only be harnessing the muscle-building and metabolism-stimulating power of intense, full-set weight training (not the typical light-weight, timed intervals of normal circuit training), you will also be incorporating the great calorie-burning effects of cardiovascular training.” – Bodybuilding.com
Essentially, it is about understanding which exercises work particularly well in terms of getting your metabolic rate going. The most important thing, however, is that you do those exercises without stopping. Every time you stop for a rest, your metabolic rate will drop again, and it will cost you wasted energy to get it back up again. This is why circuit training works so well: you don’t give your metabolic rate a chance to recover until you are completely done with your workout. This means it will be in full overdrive and that you will get the most out of it. It may sound like an absolute killer, but because you do each exercise for a relatively short period of time, it is actually very easy to manage. You will never feel like you are straining a specific group of muscles.