No to circuit training?

lcobb2

lcobb2

Cathlete
Is there anyone out there who doesn't like circuit training as the basis for their workouts? I've had so much success with focusing on one or two body parts per day that I don't like circuit training very well. I just feel that circuit training (emphasizing all of the body parts in one workout) doesn't get into as deep into my muscle fibers as well. Now, I do like circuit training as a "recovery" workout, but not as a staple. Anyone else out there or am I the only one?
 
I enjoy circuit training - whether strength only circuits or those that incorporate cardio. I especially enjoy circuits in a gym incorporating strength and machine cardio. I would not say they are not effective, just not as effective for me.

My best results have always come from split weight-training. Something about doing multiple sets per body part consecutively with brief intervening recovery works better than any other protocol/rotation on my body.

To digress from your topic, cardio of any kind (steady state, interval) is a lot of fun and makes me feel great, but does not seem to help me very much with fat loss. Weight-training on the other hand helps me change my body composition - lose fat% and gain muscle. Of all forms of cardio, running/elliptical work better for some reason than group-class style DVDs (kick box / step / hi-lo).

But then I think people are different and this is not necessarily true for all people.
 
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I really like circuit training--probably a short attention span. I don't really know about results because I don't think about it like that just that I enoy a circuit workout. I have been thinking recently about including one a week in any rotation I plan.
 
I find myself doing less and less circuit training. Not because I don't like it, I find it the easiest way to workout because it's just not as hard for me as focusing on one or two areas is, but because I do get better results from splitting things up and doing one part a day or splits with separate cardio.
 
I prefer heavy training over circuits so splits are my weight training of choice. I will throw in a circuit workout if I want to work the muscles more than once per week or just to switch things up.

That said....I really like doing the 4DS upper body premix. It is the one total body that leaves me feeling really worked out.

JJ
 
You are most definitely not the only one! :) Heavy free weights are my first love & what I enjoy most when it comes to exercise. I have a 3 day split for weights at the gym & I'll throw a circuit w/o in at home once a week just to mix things up & keep my muscles guessing, but it's the free weights I really enjoy.
 
I love circuit workouts but not for muscle building. I enjoy it for that fact that I like mixing things up from time to time. Im never sore after a circuit workout (which makes sense) but I think ( I could be wrong) that it burns lots of cals in a short amount of time. Going from one thing to the next keeps the body confused.
I usually work one body part per week plus a couple of good circuit workouts.

Lori:)
 
I consider kettlebells kind of circuit training so I like them and try to do two per week, but my first love is splitting the bodyparts up and hitting them hard once a week along with interval cardio and steady state.
 
I really enjoy circuit workouts, but I've noticed more results with heavy weight training.

I'm doing a circuit/muscle endurance rotation now, and I figure I'm doing 2 things:

1. Building my muscle and CV endurance

2. Preparing my muscles, tendons, joints, etc. for heavier rotations to come.

I'm also experimenting with periodization of cardio, and I think circuits will come in handy for that. After 2 months of GS and S&H/4DS with minimum cardio, I'll head back into circuits & increased cardio and see what that does.
 
this might be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway...

I started doing weight training about 3 months ago, therefore, sort of a novice, yet it confuses me that you can get great overall results (as many of you have noted in this thread) from working one or two body parts per day per week... does that mean you work major muscle groups such as legs, chest, bicepts, etc, just once every 6-7 days? how does that build or even maintain strength in that muscle group if you are only working them once a week? I guess I would relate this to cardio in that if I only do one workout of 45 minutes once per week, by the next time it would be scheduled 7 days later, I would feel like I'm starting at square one again... does that make any sense? Can anyone explain what the benefit is of doing one body part just once a week? In my feeble little mind, more is better, so I would have assumed that to see any great benefits you would have to do body parts multiple times a week or lose the forward progress... two steps forward, one step back... would be interested to know your thought anyone?

thanks :)
 
dbelden1 said:
this might be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway...

I started doing weight training about 3 months ago, therefore, sort of a novice, yet it confuses me that you can get great overall results (as many of you have noted in this thread) from working one or two body parts per day per week... does that mean you work major muscle groups such as legs, chest, bicepts, etc, just once every 6-7 days? how does that build or even maintain strength in that muscle group if you are only working them once a week? I guess I would relate this to cardio in that if I only do one workout of 45 minutes once per week, by the next time it would be scheduled 7 days later, I would feel like I'm starting at square one again... does that make any sense? Can anyone explain what the benefit is of doing one body part just once a week? In my feeble little mind, more is better, so I would have assumed that to see any great benefits you would have to do body parts multiple times a week or lose the forward progress... two steps forward, one step back... would be interested to know your thought anyone?

thanks :)
Click to expand...

Dani,

a. Muscle development is different from cardio fitness. Muscles do not grow while you exercise them. When you lift, tiny little tears happen in the muscle. When you rest and recover after lifting, the muscle fibres grow in volume in the process of repair. So rest is necessary for hypertrophy or muscle growth.

b. If you do a full body routine for one hour 3 X a week or if you do a split body routine of one hour 3 X a week, each body part is probably getting the same number of sets per week. Instead of getting say doing 24 reps for your lats over 3 full body sessions which addds up to 72 reps, when you work lats once a week, you may end up doing 72 reps ion lat day in a single session with a split routine.
 
Your muscles need time to recover, when I say I work each bodypart once, that means going "balls to the wall" with that particular muscle group...to failure each set, or almost failure.

If however you are doing circuit type workouts, you do not go to failure or as heavy, thus allowing your muscle groups to recover much more quickly, enabling you to work each group more than once per week. Make sense?
 
Just to add to Tiffany's info, when you do a total body w/o for an hour your muscles would be too tired to truly work them to exhaustion. For example, if you start w/shoulders & end w/legs, by the time you get to legs you're probably too tired to do your max.

Also w/circuits you're doing low weight/high reps. This will tone your muscles but not really build them. When you work a single BP you do low reps, heavy weight. The heavy weight is what increases muscle mass.

You can work each BP 2X a week w/heavy weights, but any more than that & you're overtraining. Overtraining results in muscle shrinkage.

OK I just read over what I wrote & it looks like a jumble of thoughts. Am I making any sense?
 
I'm not a big fan of circuit training either.. I've never seen good results when I've used them for a 4-6 week rotation.

However, I think they are very fun and on the weeks where I'm short on time or need a break from heavy lifting one bodypart/day I will incorporate a couple of them when I know I need to do something different.

Take care, Lynn M.
 
Hate circuit training. Loathe it. Rarely do it. Probably should, because they say what we need is exactly what we hate and never do!

I am not a stop-start kind of person. This type of working out suits those who love raquet sports and tennis or soccer, it suits a personality type and those with more fast twitch muscle fibres rather than those with more slow twitch fibres. My husband and daughter are well suited to this kind of workout, one is raquet sports lover and my daughter loves tennis and soccer. But all that "run, now change direction, now start running again, wait! no, stop, oh, OK, run again but now in that direction" tires me out within 2 minutes. But, set me off in one direction doing one activity and I can go for hours. So, my slow twitch fibres suit long distance running, swim a mile, hike with backpack all day and slow, heavy weight training sessions.

Hence, I separate my cardio and my weights, and I prefer heavy training to endurance. Well, I have arms like sticks, so endurance upper body work, which is all that circuit training can possible give you, just makes no sense at all.

Circuit training, with it's bootcamp approach of one minute of this, then a minute of that, a minute of jacks, and a minute of bench press, is the equivalent of stop-start sports and I am crap at all of them! Hence, what we don't like, we never do!

The closest I come to it is doing Supersets twice through last Saturday. I didn't lift anywhere near as heavy as I could during a regular weight training session, so I don't do it too often. Once in a while toshake things up.

The High Step circuit workouts Cathe came out with sit unused on my shelves.......

Clare
 
maddiesmum said:
Hate circuit training. Loathe it. Rarely do it. Probably should, because they say what we need is exactly what we hate and never do!

Clare
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Ditto. My body does not respond to circuits, it likes splits and heavy weights. And I do NOT like to mix my "corn and mashed potatoes" (aka weights and cardio).
 
I incorporate a full body weight workout, or one of the High Step workouts in my routine ever couple of weeks ... just for variety and to hit things differently. I couldn't imagine doing only circuit weight training for EVERY workout though...
 
I usually add circuit workouts to the end of the week for a greater calorie burn or to add some "finishing touches" to my muscles. They usually add a nice little burn without going to complete failure/exhaustion.
 
I got great results doing The Firm circuit workouts, until I stopped seeing results. Then I started doing Cathe's GS (3-day split) workouts. Same thing. Great results, until that stopped. It's taken me a while to see that the real key is constant change. I've gone back to including The Firm circuits and, once again, I'm seeing great results. Except, this time, I'm mixing it up. In the mornings, I'll do splits for a few weeks, alternated with cardio (usually Cardio Coach but now I also work in cardio dvd's), then I'll do full-body weight workouts (again, alternating cardio workouts). In the evenings, after work, I've been tacking on circuit workouts to keep my metabolism elevated and to get moving, since I'm mostly stuck indoors now that the weather sucks. These nighttime workouts are just fun and lightly challenging (enough to work up a sweat but aren't killer hard like, say, IMAX3!). Even so, these (extra) easy nighttime circuit workouts seem to be having quite an impact on my body...

I have learned that everything works, until it no longer does, so now I change it up every two weeks to avoid plateau's - and boredom. Circuit definitely has it's place, as does everything else. Finding that place is the tricky part because it varies with everyone. You just need to figure out how much you need of each.
 
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