Achieving the Best Gym Workout with Circuit Training

You have invested in a gym membership and you are excited about going on your first day. You inhale the smell of socks in the locker room and you know you have come to the right place: this will be the time that you will achieve your best ever gym workout and this is the gym that will help you do it! Yet no sooner have you gone out on the floor, when a peculiar sight meets your eyes: there is a whole group of exercise aficionados sweating and working and scurrying from one machine and activity to the next with little or no rest. Reminiscent of squirrels jumping from tree to tree you wonder what is going on, until a veteran exerciser next to you whispers the magic words: circuit training.

Exactly what does circuit training entail? Well, the idea is to complete a varied amount of exercises with little rest in between. The goal is to work different muscle groups during the same workout without letting the heart rate go down too much while alternating the muscle groups. For this reason you will see athletes at the gym who will jump rope for ten minutes, put it down and immediately go on to do sit-ups, followed by the stair master, followed by some barbell curls, and so on. For someone who first visits a gym this is a daunting sight, and may actually be quite discouraging.

Do you really need to go through all of this rigmarole to achieve the best gym workout? Well, truth be told, it will make your life a lot easier, and it will help you to stick to your exercise routine. Yet like everything else that has to do with exercise, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about circuit training. Running around as if you are a squirrel will do nothing but stress you out unnecessarily. Additionally, many a personal trainer is of the firm belief that the perfect workout consists of twenty minutes of hard work, followed by ten minutes of cool down. So for those who are intimidated by the hour long workouts of the aficionados, don’t be!

Here is the best way to have an effective, and fun, gym workout with circuit training:

Rome was not built in a day, and neither will be your body. Do not think that you have to do every station of the circuit every day. Instead, do two or three stations per workout, and make sure that you push yourself hard for at least twenty minutes.

For your thighs you can work on the stair climber, do squats, or use the leg press. Whatever you decide, make sure that you warm up properly first!

For your abs, do leg-lifts or pulses for as long as you can. Several of the ab exercise machines available at the gym work wonders!

For your chest simple pushups will do the trick.

To exercise your gluts, go ahead and do some more squats.

Hire a personal trainer for an hour and ask him (or her) to help you to develop a doable and reasonable circuit. Your trainer will not only help you to come up with some ideas, but will also suggest exercises the “flow” together, so that your workout is not an abrupt start and stop routine of different exercises. In addition to the foregoing, your trainer will also help you make sure that you develop good form in your workout so that you do not acquire bad habits early on in your gym workouts. Once you have gotten familiar and comfortable with the circuit you have, you may wish to once again enlist the help of a trainer to design a second and third circuit for you to help you vary the exercises to keep the experiences fresh and challenging. Nothing will turn you into a couch potato faster than being bored with the exercise regimen you have set up!

As you can see, circuit training does not have to be the daunting task but can actually be a quite enjoyable activity that will ensure that you get the most out of your gym workout.