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When your goal is to try and burn off that excess body fat you have on your body, what’s the best way to achieve results?  Without a doubt, it’s circuit training.  Circuit training is such an effective way to drop the pounds because it’s such a high-intensity form of resistance training, as well as anaerobic training (i.e. sprints).

Circuit training is so much more effective at burning off fat, increasing endurance, and achieving a better level of fitness.

When I train my fat-loss clients, I always structure their workouts around a circuit training-style program.  Even though a program needs to have levels of progression, the progression levels can usually be structured into a circuit-style plan.

Circuit training follows the format of completing an upper-body exercise, followed by a lower-body exercise.  For example, I will have a client do squats.  While they’re recovering from the squats, I’d have them do an upper-body exercise, such as pushups.  This type of structure utilizes a principle known as active recovery.  The reason active recovery is so effective is because while your legs are recovering from squats, your body can still be working by challenging your upper body muscles with pushups.
 
Unlike the traditional form of completing a set of squats, resting, completing another set of squats, etc., your body can still achieve the same level of recovery in your legs while doing an upper body exercise like pushups.  But with active recovery, even though your lower body is recovering, your body is still being challenged, and your heart rate is still staying up by continuing to move during the recovery of the lower body.

Why is this so effective?  If you remember, it’s because high-intensity exercise is unbelievably more effective at burning off fat compared to low-intensity exercise that consists of a lot of rest breaks.

There are many different types of circuit training workouts that I use with my clients.  One consists of my clients following the format of sprinting, upper/lower body exercise, sprinting, upper/lower body exercise, etc.

Another variation of a circuit training program is upper/lower body exercise, high-intensity exercise, such as jumping jacks, upper/lower body exercise, etc.

One that’s a more well-known variation is the example I used a little bit ago with performing a lower body exercise, such as a squat, followed by an upper body exercise, such as a pushup, followed again by the squat, etc.

Unlike similar versions of circuit training, such as supersets, true circuit training doesn’t allow for a rest break after the completion of one set of squats and one set of pushups.  These types of rest breaks are more for those that are lifting very heavy amounts of weight to put on muscle mass.  Circuit training for fat loss doesn’t require as heavy of loads; it’s more about keeping the intensity high for burning off the most calories and creating that long-term calorie burn after your workout is finished. 

If you’re new to exercising, I’d suggest working up to doing circuit training.  If you start out from the get go with circuit training, you’ll risk getting burnt out or even injured.  If you’ve been working out for a few weeks now, and you’re not doing circuit training, start today.  Circuit training is so much more effective at burning off fat, increasing endurance, and achieving a better level of fitness. 

Dan Falkenberg, BA, ACE-CPT, NASM-PES

Dan Falkenberg is the cofounder of Your Live Trainers.  He can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.

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Tags: exercise selection, weight loss