Circuit training is a very popular way to lose body fat in a time-effective manner and is often touted as a great way to build muscle. But is this true?
Today we are going to explore this notion because as with anything, you can only really prioritize one thing at a time and how you design your circuit training program will dictate which area you are emphasizing more, fat loss or muscle growth.
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So just to make sure we are all on the same page circuit training is when we do 5 to 10 different exercises in a row with little or no rest in-between. Once you have finished these exercises typically you will repeat the circuit one or two more times. How many exercises you choose or how many times you do the circuit is based on how much time you have to train.
While the exercises you choose might seem pretty random. This is how I like to set up mine. Typically I use dumbbells, but you could use bands, a Suspension trainer, kettlebells or bodyweight.
You want to pick a series of compound movements with at least one that focuses on the lower body like squats, one for the push chain like push-ups, then a pull exercise like rows and something for the core that is active.
What I mean by this, is when you put together a fat burn circuit you want to keep your heart rate up. Exercises like the plank give our cardio system a break. So it wouldn’t be the best choice. Something like V ups would be much better.
My dumbbell Tabata workouts that I do on this channel work well focusing on these 4 movements or a combination of them. An example of a combination would be a squat and press. Where you are combining a lower and an upper-body push movement.
If your goal is to put together a fat loss circuit then it makes sense that your fifth exercise would be cardio-focused. This could be sprints, jump rope, jumping jacks or burpees just to name a few examples.
These exercises can be done in timed intervals or based on a certain number of reps. The two most common timed intervals I use are Tabata style which has 20-sec work and 10 seconds rest. Or I will go with a longer work time of 40 sec with 20 seconds rest.
When basing your exercises on a certain number of reps, for fat loss the number of repetitions in a given set can be as low as ten reps.
I like to keep mine high, in the 15 to 20 rep range. As soon as you finish the required number of reps you move to the next exercise, as with timed intervals you might have a brief rest in between each exercise.
If you are going to take a longer rest the best time to do it is right after you have finished the circuit and before you start the next round. But typically I wouldn’t rest any more than 2 minutes at this point.
This will give you a good fat burning workout that will help preserve your muscle mass while losing weight and might even build a little muscle.
But when it comes to muscle growth here is the problem. Because we have such short rests in between each exercise we end up fully exhausting our cardiovascular system before we have exhausted the muscle.
This doesn’t mean we can’t use circuit training to build muscle, but we do have to adjust the way we do the circuit to shift the focus from fat burning to muscle growth. The first thing we need to do is allow ourselves more rest in between exercises I like forty-five seconds to a minute.
Then we need to increase the weight and reduce the number of reps we do. Again I have seen reps as low as 3 to 6 programmed, but l find that too low and prefer the 8 to 12 range.
You want to find a weight that brings you close to failure by the last rep of each exercise. This might mean you’ll have to change your weights or have a few dumbbell setups on the go.
Another interesting thing you can do is split your circuit into an upper and lower body doing upper body one day and lower the next. The best way to program your exercises for the upper body is to alternate push and pull compound movements. And for the lower body alternating anterior and posterior-chain exercises.
This is one place where I’ll often alternate an isolation exercise with a compound movement. For example starting with squats then going to hamstring curls or Romanian Deadlifts to leg extensions.