Burn More Fat with Circuit Cycling!

Circuit Cycling - Get The Pump and Burn Fat With This Creatively FUN Routine

Happy Friday Gang...

Let me tell ya, after yesterday’s HOT and humid weather I sure am LOVING today at a nice and cool 78 degrees.  The gym’s A/C never stopped running yesterday and couldn’t get the temperature below 85, UGH.

It truly is nice when you can have the garage doors open and get one heck of a killer workout in :D

Speaking of which, I’d like to introduce you to a system that I implement from time to time that delivers quite a punch in your Fat Burning efforts.

I like to throw Circuit Cycling into the mix whenever I need a little bit of a lighter lifting day but still keep the intensity up.  This is something that I started doing years ago and I always get a great pump, my heart racing and my fat crying with this routine.

What is Circuit Cycling.

Circuit Cycling is something I developed many years ago and have used with personal training clients to help get them results stripping off fat and building a lean, toned body in as little as 30 minutes each session.

Simply put, its moving from one exercise to the next with little to no rest - like circuit training...

But not exactly... You see, I have a bit of a problem with traditional circuits.

You see, most times Circuits are targeted and used as a great Fat Burning workout, the problem is that they can be treated too much like cardio instead of focusing on muscular overload.

Often times traditional circuits take too long to get back to a particular muscle group, especially if you’re doing full body.

This allows too much rest time and in doing so the muscles never get broken down so once your workout is over, the body doesn’t burn any more fat.  

And if you’ve been training more than 3 months, you’re actually lucky if you burn any fat at all during a traditional circuit training workout.

Its like Boot Camp classes - once your body adapts to the training, it no longer needs to adjust to what you’re doing.  You NEED to constantly challenge the body with higher intensity.  If you want even more ideas on how to add more intensity to your workouts, read this Blog post here.

While Circuit training burns calories and possibly fat when your exercising Circuit Cycling training allows for Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) to occur.  

Simply put, this means you’ll BURN FAT long after finishing your workout due to an elevated metabolism.

NOTE: Lifting Heavy is the best way for this process to occur, however, there are those times when heavy just isn’t cutting it and your body needs a little break from it.  That’s where Circuit Cycling comes into play.

Here’s How To Implement Circuit Cycling

Decide what muscle groups and exercises you are going to use during your training.  

You’ll definitely want to pre-plan these workouts and its best if you can set everything up before getting started to keep your rest intervals short and your training intense.  

If that’s not an option because of the gym you train at, use your set up time as your rest time and keep working with a purpose!

For today’s example I’m going to use a Full Body Routine with 5 different exercises.

Each exercise will be complete with 3 working sets for a total of 15 working sets in this training session.

Exercises performed will be:

• Pull-ups
• Barbell Front Squats
• Push-ups
• Inverted Rows
• Sprinter Step Ups

Start with the first exercise for desired amount of reps, rest 15-45 Seconds and repeat again immediately followed by the next exercise on your list.  

In this case after your second set of Pull-ups you’ll hit your first set of Front Squats.  Rest again 15-45 seconds and repeat starting with your third and final set of Pull-ups, your second set of Front Squats and now your first set of Push-ups.

Every time you complete your third and final set of an exercise, the first set of the next exercise on the list is added.  Complete this pattern until you finish off with 3 full sets of the final exercise.

NOTE: Your final exercise will be completed alone with its final set.

As you can see, you can still get a great full body Circuit without allowing the muscles to rest for too long between the working sets which will promote more strength and EPOC to occur!

So what rep range should you use?

For Body weight exercises I recommend Sub-Max effort with each working set, leaving a little left in the tank at completion.  With weight bearing exercises such as the Front Squats listed here, stay within the 6-12 rep range.

Listen, if 12 is too easy or if you’re going 12 plus reps, increase your weight and get serious about RESULTS!

Is Spongebob Sandbagging here?

There is a HUGE difference between completing desired reps and going through the motions!

You can most definitely work with heavier weight and rep ranges of 3-5 reps so experiment with what works for you and have fun applying this routine in your next training session.

Get Work Done!