Aerobic Circuit Training

Fat Burning

Aerobic circuit training is the perfect way to rev up your metabolism and burn off the fat.

Any exercise is helpful. But different approaches to exercise will give you different results.

Circuit training is good when you want an overall toning workout that burns calories and speeds up your metabolism.

You don't have to be in good shape to do circuit training. And that is one of the best things about it. No matter what shape you are in now you can do circuit training.

Later, when you are tone and fit, you might want to advance to other kinds of routines. But you might find that circuit training gives you the body you want and fits with your schedule. If so, you can just stick with it from now on.

Keep moving to keep the blood flowing

OK. Now, when you do aerobic circuit training you have to keep moving. You'll be getting a bit winded--breathing fast--and your heart will be beating. That is good. That is what you want.

But to do that you need the right set up. That's why a gym is a good investment. In a gym it is easy to go from machine to machine without breaking your rhythm.

Of course you can do the same thing at home if you have some exercise bands or a few dumbbells. It just takes a little thought ahead of time to make sure that it is all set up right so you don't have to take too many breaks.

That is the key to aerobic circuit training. You don't want to be taking breaks between exercise. If you do, then your heart rate and breathing slow down.

And if your heart rate slows you lose the benefit of the aerobic exercise. Of course you have to pace yourself. Especially if you are just starting out you can work yourself to exhaustion pretty quickly.

Do these exercises rapidly, one after the other without resting:

High repetitions are the key

So the best is to do a high repetition set -- 15 repetitions is good -- and then move right to the next set.

If you do high repetitions with lower weight you are less likely to get injured. Why? Because lower weight puts less stress on the joints, ligaments and tendons.

Lower repetition sets -- for example 2 or 3 repetitions per set like the powerlifters do -- are great for building strength. But when you are that close to the maximum weight that you can lift you can get hurt.

With powerlifting routines you must make sure that you are fully warmed up, always use excellent form, and use a spotter. Then you can workout safely.

One body part at a time

It this routine you work all of the muscles of one body area before you move on to another area. For example, you do several chest exercises before moving on to back exercises. Most gyms set up their circuit training this way.

But you can also do routines where you do one exercise for a body part, and then move to another body part. This gives the advantage of resting the body part between exercises. You will have to experiment and see which way works best for you.

Oh, and what do you do if the machine you need is busy? You just go to the next exercise, and then when the machine is free you come back to it. You won't miss out on anything.

And mixing up the order of the exercises will keep the routine fresh. So mix it up sometimes. You'll find that this can be a lot of fun.

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