Circuit Training For Weight Loss Is It Worthwhile?
Jun 13th, 2011 | By Todd Bowman | Category: Lose Weight
We all know that circuit training is a great way to lose weight. By combining weight training or strength exercises with cardiovascular training and endurance exercises you give your body a complete workout in one session.
Circuit training is beneficial because it allows your muscles to rest during the time that you’re doing some aerobic movements after you just did anaerobic or strength training movements. Then when you’re pumping iron and lifting weights, you’re giving your heart, lungs and cardiovascular system a break.
Physiologically this is what is happening, but on a holistic level, you don’t really feel like there are any breaks. Your lungs start screaming, you lost your breath and you might even feel light headed or dizzy if your fitness levels aren’t high. There is no break with circuit training (until you’re done with one entire circuit). It’s one of the best ways to improve your fitness levels.
Compound exercises are the way to go if you’re looking to workout your entire body and get the biggest results. The advantage of doing circuit training for weight loss is that you don’t hit a weight loss plateau.
Many times people hit a wall. Either with motivation, results or simply the amount of weight lifted. This happened to me recently with squats. I was up to squatting 225 but couldn’t bust through so I used circuit training for 2 weeks and then was able to squat 235 pounds no problem.
Other people hit fitness plateaus with motivation and changing your routines can really help. Plus it’s great for muscle confusion and keeping your body guessing. If you’re stagnating in the results department (can’t lose the last 10 lbs or can’t lose any more inches off your waist) then changing things up by doing full body circuit training can really super charge your body.
Think of it like a shock to your system or like using jumper cables from one car battery to another. It’s like infusing your muscles with new stimulus and energy.
Your body is constantly doing different exercises each time you workout in the gym. The more exercises and different exercises you do, the more your body burns extra calories to meet all of the exercise demands. This is excellent for raising your metabolism, releasing essential hormones like human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone and lactic acid.
Not only that but you’ll build more muscle also. Even when you want to lose weight, you should always focus on building more muscle.
To lose weight most effectively during circuit training you need to allow yourself only 30 seconds recovery time between exercises. When switching from push-ups to sit ups you should only rest for 30 seconds before doing the next exercise. This is done for all exercises, such as jumping jacks, squat thrusts, lunges, squats, pull ups and other exercises.
This keeps the blood flow constant to your muscles. This increases your heart rate, releases endorphins and is vitally healthy.
This fast pace exercise routine is held for the duration of the workout. Keeping a fast paced workout keeps your heart rate up. And remember that this style of workout is done not only for the cardiovascular training and endurance portion of the workout, but even for the strength training. You’ll get ripped, shredded and defined by doing this type of workout. If you’re a guy and looking to add lots of heavy bulk, then this isn’t the style for you.
The results you’ll achieve by doing full body compound exercises like this is a chisseled swimmers body look. Six pack abs, a defined chest and arms. You’ll lose fat and look amazing, trust me.
This is the perfect exercise for any women and any man who wants to lose weight and get more fit and toned. If you want to bulk up and really build large muscles and get stronger, you should do more Olympic type lifts like bench press, squats, deadlifts etc.
Heart Rate
Keeping your heart rate high continuously builds up endurance. The better your endurance the longer you can work out. When you are able to work out for longer periods of time your body taps into its reserves – fat – and converts fat into energy which is burned during your circuit training. If you don’t build up endurance you aren’t able to burn as much fat as you would if you had endurance. Just make sure you aren’t in the gym for more than 90 minutes. Lactic acid is not something you need coarsing through your blood and into your muscles. This will cause cramping and a weakening of your immune system.
Make your workouts short, intense and powerful. Ideally you should only spend about 45 minutes of actual workout time in the gym. With breaks, warm ups and cool downs this might be up to an hour. But your actual workout time should not exceed more than forty five minutes if at all possible.
Circuit Training Benefits
Another benefit of circuit training for weight loss is that when you rest for 30 seconds in between exercises you are increasing your ability to lose weight. If you are continuously exercising without rest, your body gets used to the workout, and the rate which you burn fat calories drop off. But by taking short breaks this confuses your muscles so that your muscles cannot get used to the workout and continues to burn fat calories at a higher rate.
The more muscle you build, the higher your metabolism, which means the more calories and fat you’ll burn, even when you’re not working out. Burning calories while watching tv? Sounds impossible? Build more muscle and see what I mean!
When exercising at such an intense level for long periods of time your body burns fat calories at a faster rate. Most people keep their exercise level at the metabolic threshold- this is where aerobic exercise switches to anaerobic exercise. When your body switches to anaerobic exercise your muscles no longer rely on oxygen but on your fat and the fat is burned at a higher rate than when doing aerobic exercise.
But your body cannot sustain anaerobic exercise for a long time; this is why people aim to stay at the metabolic threshold while doing circuit training. You can maintain this intense workout for long periods of time without tiring too quickly. The best way to lose weight is to burn as many fat calories in a short period of time as possible, and circuit training is one of the best ways to lose weight.
A circuit training session usually takes about 30 minutes, this is great for people who desire a great workout in a short amount of time and who want to lose a lot of weight. If you are new to exercise and circuit training you will need to build up to workout out for 30 minutes.
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