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Gym Fitness

Circuit Training for Beginners

Learn everything you need to know about circuit training for beginners here in our latest blog post. Check it out now!

Published: 4/1/19

 

Circuit Training For Beginners: Everything You Need To Know

If you have been looking for a way to shake up your gym routine and introduce fresh and new exercises to your workouts, circuit training could be juuust right for you. Whether you have been an athlete your entire life, or are brand new to the gym, circuit training can be a fun, fast, and effective way to utilize your workout time. Circuit training, in short, is completing about five to ten exercises in a row on different areas of your body without resting. Here is everything you need to know if you are a beginner to circuit training workouts!

What Exactly Is Circuit Training?

In circuit training, an exerciser will target different areas of their body by moving from workout to workout with no rest in between. This sort of workout can involve any number of exercises, from strength exercises, bodyweight workouts, running, resistance training, cardio exercises, swimming, and more—the possibilities are seemingly endless.

You can create a circuit by thinking up five to ten exercises and then completing each of them either in a specific amount of time (say, one minute) or for a specific number of reps and then moving onto the next exercise. Some people complete their circuit one time and leave, and others complete two, three, or even more rounds during a session depending on how they are feeling.

What Is The Main Benefit Of Circuit Training?

While there are several benefits of circuit training, the main one is rest. This may sound odd to you. How is rest a benefit of circuit training? Well, since you are targeting different muscle groups with each exercise, the rest of your body has the chance to rest while you work. If you are doing leg lifts, your arms and upper body are resting, which makes it easy for you to seamlessly move to an arm/upper body workout without the usual rest time. This makes for a quick workout (reducing rest times mean that you can get in a full body workout in just 30 minutes). By building strength, you are also raising your heart rate and therefore torching extra calories every single time.

Is Circuit Training The Same As Interval Training?

This is a common question people have when completing the circuit and the answer is—no. They are very similar ways in which to complete an exercise. However, there is a major difference. When working on an interval, you want to change the intensity of one workout to raise your heart rate. So, interval training could technically be doing jumping jacks for one minute, resting, doing jumping jacks again for another minute but at a greater speed, resting, and repeat. It does not necessarily require a circuit of exercises. Or, you could do a circuit within an interval. Let us explain. Let’s say you create a circuit like 30 seconds of burpees, 30 seconds of squats, 30 seconds of lunges, 30 seconds of push-ups. Technically, that is a small circuit. However, to make that into interval training, you would complete those exercises, rest for 30 seconds to a minute, and then complete it again at a higher intensity. In this way, the circuit and interval training are similar, but also not exactly the same as one another. Make sense?

What If I Don’t Know What Workouts to Do?

If you are new to the gym or changing up your routine, it may be difficult to come up with your own circuit. Some gyms actually have circuit areas or rooms to help with just that. At Chuze Fitness you can find an Express Circuit area at all our locations. So, head over to the circuit station, read up on the rules, and get to working out! The circuit area is set up with a timer system so that you can easily follow along. Start at any machine, use it for the duration of the timer, and then move (in order) to the next machine without rest. Our Express Circuit is a quick and highly effective workout.

How To Challenge Yourself More

As you continue working out in the circuit area, you will start to build muscle which is going to make it a little easier every time (good news, right?). But, once that starts to happen, you should think about adding more weight or more intensity to give yourself a better workout. Often times people think a workout gets too easy for them, but what happens is, they are not upping their levels of intensity alongside their new found strength. The only way to get stronger is to push yourself! And we are here to help you with that. If you need help figuring out how to work out in the circuit area or to add weight to your machine, grab someone at the front desk and ask them to show you how!

Circuit workouts are ideal if you want to get in an incredible exercise on your own, but are not quite sure just how to do it.

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