After more than a decade in the health and fitness industry, one of the most common goals that I come across with clients is weight loss. Easy to understand coming from a country where 30% of our nation’s population is considered obese. So how do we solve this problem? Well, it’s difficult to tell where to start, just pick up any magazine at your local grocery store only to find 5-10 different fad diets and several “ways to lose weight fast” quick fix type solutions. With so much mixed media it’s not hard to see why there’s so much confusion! It’s overwhelming, confusing, and very frustrating for the average individual to sift through countless pages of advice only to come back and report to me “I’ve been doing cardio for months and I just don’t seem to be getting anywhere”. My goal here is to clear up some of that confusion and present a weight loss solution for the average individual looking to just keep fit and toned, not to become a bodybuilder, and not to run the next marathon, and it’s called circuit training.
Many have heard the term before, few understand it. What most people fail to see when embarking on a weight loss journey is that the absolute WORST thing you can do is do the same workout day after day. Jumping on a treadmill for 30 minutes keeping the same pace for the entire half hour will not yield maximum results, plain and simple. The human body is very intelligent and you won’t fool it into burning stored fat just by jumping on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Not to mention this routine can get very boring very quickly! Circuit training is an effective fat burning technique used by trainers all over the world based on the basic principle of “muscle confusion”. Keeping your 30 minute workout diverse in movements and heart rates will thrust your body into what we call “fat burning mode”, enabling the individual to get the most possible out of those 30 minutes. Incorporating 2-3 different workout routines with little to no rest in between is extremely effective at raising one’s heart rate and these exercises can be done simply with your own bodyweight. Furthermore, circuit training never allows your body time to adapt. The body, being the complex machine that it is, always tries to find ways to adapt and take the paths of least resistance. Because circuit training is constantly changing, your body never gets a chance to adapt and revert to homeostasis, rather stays in that “fat burning zone”.
So instead of jumping on the treadmill at your local gym or sitting on a recumbent bike for 30 minutes, give circuit training a try! It’s guaranteed to take you out of that plateau and into results you never might have anticipated! Not only will you be burning fat, raising metabolism, and conditioning your cardiovascular system, but you’ll also be achieving healthy muscle tone and definition. Stop being the average Joe or Jane and try something new to take your health and fitness routine to a new level!
