Introduction
A healthy man brings positivity to the world. This wise saying has always been trustworthy, and it will always remain effective in the forthcoming times for generation after generation. We look towards a person with positivity who is well built up and gives an energetic vibe in our own lives. A person in possession of good health can inspire the others around him. We will discuss a few but efficient exercises that can provide us sound body and sound mind to the people in this hectic period of our world.
In the realm of workouts, Circuit training is considered one of the most performed exercises by netizens. This exercise consists of several sets of activities that can give you endurance to your body. In our daily life, it is tough to maintain our diet and gym routine. But this set of exercises can help you to substantiate the lack of time you are paying towards your health.
Circuit training is an amalgamation of stretching and body movements that can be performed at home or your rooftop without any metal weight or with some minimal amount of weight and instruments that you have available around. This training is similar to the high-intensity of aerobics, endurance training, and resistance training. You can achieve your desired body size and weight with the circuit exercise with due time. The attractive matter about this exercise is that you can perform it in one stretch when you start the set, and there is a minimal gap within the other group.
Circuit training is less time-consuming. Traditionally, the break between circuit training is shallow, leading to a rigorous session that helps you burn more calories during your exercise period. The completion of nearly all kinds of exercises has made this circuit workout very popular amongst athletics as well.
We often find world-famous athletics have scheduled their activities with the circuit exercise to get more benefits on their tracks. We would discuss the circuit training, its usefulness, the variations of this exercise, how to perform this exercise, and in which ways this exercise would help us build our muscles and get a toned and healthy structure.
What is Circuit Training?
Circuit training is a combination or set of exercises performed with a shorter time gap in-between them. There are mostly six types of activities included in this rigorous set of training. One circuit is completed when all the sets are performed within the prescribed period, and also you need to get all the exercises done to complete the circuit. A maximum number of activities that in there in a course are 12 variants.
Starting from jumping squat, high knees, push-ups, planks to V sits, Jumping lunges, and lateral skaters, the circuit training covers all the extensive forms of weightless workouts that provide so many benefits to the human body. Circuit training rehabilitates injured body parts; athletics perform it at sports conditioning level. The training also helps to improve the fitness level of your cardio and increases strength. Circuit training is best used for losing weight nowadays.
The actors and actresses perform circuit training for their performance in movies based on the scripts. As those exercises include a meagre amount of weight, it is liked by so many distinguished trainers of the world. Most of the activities can be performed only with your body weight, so you have the luxury of not visiting any particular place to do circuit training. The powerful military training of the powerful countries has included circuit training to train their armies and build them to sustain all the challenging situations.
The primary focus of the circuit training is how many times you can repeat the exercises in one day. The more you repeat, the more it becomes effective for your body. Some examples of this training can be like, do as many push-ups as you can perform within 30 seconds, and then rest for the next 30 seconds. Next, complete as many sit-ups as you can in 30 seconds, then take a gap of 30 seconds. The same should be with squats, lunges, chin-ups and, planks.
The Main Types of Circuit Training
As we discussed earlier, circuit training is a pure matter of customization according to your body demand. It indicates that you can include as many numbers of exercises as you want in your training. Based on your body type, if you’re going to work on your chest, shoulder, and biceps muscles, or you belong to some sports activity aiming to become famous athletics, the exercises can be customized. But, some primary exercises are followed in this training.
Strength Circuit Training: The strength circuit indicates training that encourages body strength. It is primarily strength-centric, including some machine weight, or one can use own body weight to complete the training. A mixture of exercise using light or heavyweight ultimately results in good benefits for the body shape.
Cardio Circuit Training: The cardiovascular workout sessions are made more exciting and effective with cardio circuit training. The cardio circuit has the exercises like jump squats and jump rope, burpees, jumping sacks, and speed skaters. Along with these exercises, the heart rate can be increased by performing some cardio machine exercises alternatively. You need to begin the cycle by running on the treadmill to warm up your body, it is now followed by sprinting for 2 minutes duration, and then you immediately shift to the step mill.
There you do, raid pace for the next 2 minutes. After that, you jump on the steep hill and do that for 2 minutes. This can be the perfect example of the cardio circuit. In the end, you can shift to the elliptical and hit the stride according to your speed. You can be fast as much as possible for the next 2 minutes before finishing the circuit of cardiovascular training.
This intense session will give some very energetic benefits to your cardio. It will boost up your heart rate, and you will feel lighter once you complete the circuit. This cardio circuit needs to be performed in a rotation of 2 to 3 times to complete a 20 to 30 minutes session.
Strength and Cardio Circuit: It is a combination of cardio and strength pieces of training. This combined training has the capacity to burn more than ten calories in a minute. In this strength and cardio circuit, the first comes strength training that is immediately followed by a cardio exercise. These two in a row can give your body and heart some solid pump-ups.
It includes some sports activities like basketball court training, where jumping and squatting are performed. Some strenuous push-ups follow that. This circuit contains total body movement. It can be performed for 20 minutes with a minimal gap between the sets.
Running Circuit or Sports Centric Circuit Training: Sports circuit training is designed explicitly for athletics. The stamina they need during their performance in the tournaments can only be achieved from the rigorous circuit training. The running circuit is arranged in a vast open area where a group of athletics is gathered for group training. The coach filters the exercise for the athletics based on the demands of their specific sport.
Each athlete chooses their set of the circuit for their different sports category. Here comes the running circuit at the beginning. This is prescribed for increasing leg strength. ½ miles of pace running is the minimum criteria. Kickboxing comes next. This is performed to bring the athletics’ shoulder and arm strength.
Kicking and punching are included in this circuit training. Another critical segment in this circuit training is the football circuit. It is included to maintain the body weights of the athletics.
Time Circuit: Time circuit is all about a set amount of time where you need to fix how many exercises you can perform. It is rather a challenging one. This brief period includes both workouts and rest. The exercise/rest ratio can be customized based on the individual requirement. However, the rest period is always low in this case.
For instance, in the normal kind of workouts, the work and rest ratio stands 50:50, whereas, in the time circuit training, it is 80:20. We can well understand a load of exercise here in a shorter period of time. This rigorous time circuit is a typical example of world-famous circuit training.
Repetition Circuit: This type of circuit is generally performed in a large group, including the experts and the beginners. The group should have different kinds of athletics where they can challenge each other. If it is asked to make a repetition of 20 sets of each exercise, the experts can do the entire set, while the chance for beginners to complete only 15 sets.
Competition Circuit: This is basically a circuit to see how much you can push your limit. The competition circuit indicates the competition with the self. For example, a person who has performed ten repetitions of a certain number of exercises yesterday, he or she is to increase the number today till 20. On the next day, he or she can push the limit up to 30. In this process, the person will gradually build his/her stamina.
Circuit Training for the Beginners
Circuit training is a rigorous kind of exercise. It needs certain days of time to become comfortable with the scheduled exercise. There is a lot of differences between the circuit training of an expert and the beginners. The beginners need to follow the under mention exercise to step into the shoes of an expert.
Circuit: 1
Ball Squats
- Take an exercise ball between your backside and the wall, and place your feet wide in sync with your hip. Your torso should be straight and abs in.
- Now you need to walk the feet out for leaning against the wall. If you are feeling uneasy about doing it, try to attempt without the exercise ball.
- Now get your knees at 90% angle by slowly bending them. If you have a joint problem in your knees, try to turn them as much as you can.
- Repeat the set for 40 to 50 seconds.
- You can hold little weights in your hand for more intensity.
Jumping Rope
This cardio exercise is performed with the help of a jumping rope. If you don’t have a string around you, no problem; you do it by just jumping up and down with your hand in simultaneous order.
- Stand straight with your feet together and try to jump upwards for 1 inch or more from the floor.
- While landing, keep your knees free, do not make them rigid.
- Repeat this circuit for 40 seconds to 1 minute.
If you are not habituated to jumping rope, no issue, you can jump without the cord. Just imagine you are doing it with a string. That can result in the same effect on your body. Keep doing the circuit for a certain length and do till your breathing limit. Do not push very hard.
Lunges
- Stand with your right leg in the front and your left leg at 3 feet behind from the right. The standing position should be in a split stance. But, the gap between the feet should be wide enough to provide you with sufficient space while you are bending both of your feet. Your left leg needs to be turned in 90 degrees while your right leg bends a little a does not shake.
- You can use little weight in this circuit to increase the intensity.
- Try to go low as much as you can, but remember your legs should not tremble at any point. If they do, that means you are pushing the limit too much. Your knees should form a 90-degree angle, but the back knee should refrain from touching the floor.
- Put little pressure on the front heel for standing up. And repeat this circuit for at least 30 seconds.
- Switch your legs and repeat the same for another 30 seconds.
Jog in Place
- Stand straight in a place with both hands up in the front position at your stomach level.
- Now start jogging and try to touch your knees with your hands.
- Keep this circuit on for 40 to 60 seconds and repeat it three times.
- If you are facing a problem touching your knees to your palms, you can take your keens up as much as you can. Push your limit slowly.
Push-ups
- Put yourself in a push-up position and make sure that the gap between your hand is broader than your shoulder length.
- Now with your back straight and your abs flexed, lower yourself and then push it up.
- Lower your body as much as you can, but do not hit your chin to the floor.
- Make a repetition of 15 in the first set, then try to increase it during the circuit.
- This circuit can be repeated 4 to 5 times.
Squats With Front Kick
- Stand straight with your feet together.
- Get your right knee up and push it forward in a kick style, but do not make it rigid.
- Lower your body down into a squat style with your knees bent.
- Repeat it like right kick, squat, and then left kick for 2 to 3 minutes.
Circuit: 2
Side to side Jumps
- Keep some small objects of the same height simultaneously on the floor. You need to be able to jump the cliff.
- Stand straight at the beginning of the first object, then jump sidewise over the things one after another.
- Repeat this circuit for 30 to 40 minutes.
- You can take a rest in between the circuits.
Dips
- Place a chair on the floor, and then sit on this with both your hands while your hips are at a lower position. The maximum bodyweight should be on your hands.
- Now, with the pressure of your hand, try to push your body upwards.
- Your hips should come upwards to the chair’s level.
- Repeat this circuit like hips up and down for 60 seconds.
- Rest in the middle and try to feel the pressure in your triceps.
Lunge with Biceps Curls
- Stand steady in the lunge position with little weights in your both hands
- Bend your right knee and keep the left knee behind. Now curl your biceps with the weights.
- Change your leg position and curl your biceps again.
- Repeat this circuit for 30 seconds for each leg.
Marching Bridges
- Lie on the floor against your back with your face toward the ceiling. Your knees should be bent.
- Now, try to push your hips upside with the pressure on your toes.
- Take your hips down and again push it upwards.
- Repeat this circuit for 40 to 60 seconds.
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Precaution and Safety Guidelines During Circuit Training
Circuit training is a fascinating form of working out. But there are few problems during the exercises. People often get overexcited and push their individual body limits very hard, and there happen some mistakes that can sometimes cause injury. We need to follow a few rules and regulations while performing circuit training.
- If you are a beginner in circuit training, start very slow, even though you consider yourself reasonably fit. Circuit training is altogether different from any other form of exercise. It has different effects on your different body parts. You need to understand that demand of your body throughout the time. So, go slow and build up your comfortable position with due time.
- You should never begin a circuit training session without warming up your body. If you are doing this training without a coach, you need to pay special attention to warm up your body. It will make your body ready for rigorous training.
- Another essential guideline for circuit training is, do proper stretching in your body. Stretching will lead your body to adopt whatever exercise you are going to perform. These precautions will save you from causing any injury in your body.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Circuit Training
The ultimate boon of the circuit training program is its cost-effective approach. Nothing expensive is required, and the training can be carried out with minimum or no use of gym equipment. The quick and easy process of set up is like a cherry on top. The result of the procedure will leave you with some impressive muscle endurance. Apart from these, the circuit training program proves to be time-efficient.
It is tough squeezing out some extra minutes to invest in fitness (though it SHOULD top our priority list). Thus, circuit training comes with a blend of strength and aerobic exercise routines. Needless to mention that the strength training will help in compensating for the degrading muscle power and bone density with age.
Working on the arms, legs, and torso muscles will prevent the body from falling victim to osteoporosis. And no, osteoporosis is not only limited to women hitting their menopause; men can be affected too!
The aerobic exercises, on the other hand, will leave your heart throbbing. Static jogging is one of the most effective training exercises for cardiovascular health. The blood circulation of the body gets a positive boost. The significant gain of sweats is a lowered risk of blood pressure. Trust the statistics! One out of every eight individuals is prey to high blood pressure. And you know the consequences.
The characteristic feature of circuit training is the nature of exercises in repetitive successions accompanied by a minimum amount of rest in between each set. Resistance training is an integral member of the group of circuit exercises. The strenuous routine may invite some severe injuries if not done under expert supervision initially. The American Council of Exercise highlighted some essential tips. Fatigue is another commonly reported problem in circuit training. Learn more about the pros and cons of circuit training here.
What are The Reasons Behind Circuit Training Became so Famous?
Circuit training has a different effect on your body compared to regular weight lifting exercises and cardiovascular conditioning. The fast repetitions and quick shifts in your body joints create a massive amount of power during the session. It creates different pressures on your body that helps in creating an overall body structure. The demand for circuit training has increased today at a very good level. It is the best way of conditioning our body.
The trainers refer this training to the athletics, movie actors, and even everyday life leading people who are preparing for hiking. There are various other reasons for circuit training becoming so famous, and body flexibility is one of those reasons. In-circuit training, you get the liberty of customizing your choice of exercises. You can choose the number of activities you want to include in circuit training. Even the British Royal Marine Commandos have chosen the circuit training for their workout session.
They make their commandos go through this rigorous circuit training to become the studs for a difficult situation and so that they can face all the hardship in their career of service. As the commandos spend their maximum time on the ship, circuit training is the only possible exercise in the short and confined space. This training builds them capable of tackling their hardship on the ship.
- Circuit training is a personalized form of exercise. It does not matter whether you are an athletic or a beginner, or an average person; you can always choose your set of practices. But, while choosing them, you need to be a little cautious about your body type and body requirement. Once you are ready with your set of selected exercises, you are prepared to give the desired shape to your body.
- The circuit training workout is capable of modification to help you get the body shape you want. The improvement depends on the type of result you want. If you want a full-body workout, you need to choose the exercises accordingly. If you wish for any specific area of your body or flexibility for any particular sport, then your training should be different from the former set. All the exercises are accommodated in your workout depending on your purpose.
- Again, it is a matter of focus shifting in your circuit training to emphasize your skill development, agility, body strength, speed, weight loss. You can focus low and high on your training’s different exercises to develop your other body parts. It is a matter of requirement. Also, your trainer could be doing the same for you. They might be knowing better about your body type.
- Time efficiency is a must for circuit training. There is no chance of time wastage in this case here. A very minimum gap between the sets of exercises gives you the most effective result. Circuit training has become so popular because of this feature. The famous boxer Muhammad Ali once shared his circuit training chart in an interview. He discussed his focus and time management during the training that provided him pace and strength for his tournaments.
- You can perform circuit training at any place. Your training period has no bound of business. You can do the activity at the park beside your house, or inside any playground, or on the rooftop of your home. You do not have to go to any gym for circuit training in particular.
- Circuit training does not need expensive equipment. You do not need to be a gym member to give a better shape to your body. The exercises in circuit training are entirely body weight-based. There is no need for other equipment apart from your body weight. You can easily arrange a space in your home or at a nearby park to do the training. House equipment like a table and chair can be used. You can also use children’s equipment like monkey bars and rope swing for your circuit training.
- Circuit training beats the boredom of exercise. You are usually tired of that long 45 minutes of workout at the gym. You may not like running on a treadmill or cycling your leg for long hours. Here comes the fast circuit training, less time-consuming, provides you comparatively quicker results. Circuit training can be short but still, be very effective on your body. You get the feeling of your calories getting burnt.
- Another reason behind circuit training getting so famous is that it can be a group-based exercise period. You can motivate each other to sweat your calories more within some intense period of exercise. It is pure fun to see your opponent getting inspired by your fastness of moves.
Conclusion
Circuit training is on the to-do list of fitness fanatics all over the glove and that too, for many good reasons. The twenty-first century’s world is busy doing everything with no time for anything. The gym is crowded with busy souls. So, how to provide just the right mixture of aerobic and strength? A circuit training program is the answer. Fix an appointment with your fitness trainer and chalk out your circuit routine.
The amalgamation of resistance training and aerobic exercises keeps the trainee up and going. Along with building muscle strength, the program also presents several other health benefits. Lowered risk of blood pressure, increasing bone density are some of the significant gains. Some of the most effective exercise routines devised are strength circuit, cardio circuit training, strength, cardio circuit training, running circuit training, etc.
The key feature of this group of exercises is that it is suitable for all. It helps the trainees meet their specific body goals with modifications in the exercise and diet plan. Whether you aim to lose weight, gain muscular endurance, or trying to maintain your fitness and health, circuit training is a one-stop solution for all your needs. The diet, along with the training programs, is essential to chisel out a perfect dream body.
Starving your body and depriving it of its basic needs will only be detrimental to the development. The sports scientists highly recommend the beginners get accustomed to circuit training programs for future benefits. Ready to sweat out under a Monday morning sun? Do not forget to warm up first!