Circuit Training Advice

[williamtc]

Dear all,

I'm a 19 year old male, who about 2 or so months ago started doing circuit training. I was not in shape, nor completely out of it but saw the summer rapidly approaching so decided to go all out. Since then I have seen pretty impressive improvements, but I feel I am slowly hitting that plateau where improving is becoming difficult.

To give you an idea of what I've been doing, I constructed two different circuits that I do at home on alternate days. One primarily focuses on my upper body, whilst the other the lower body. This allows me to work out everyday as I never use the same muscles consecutively.

[4 sets] Circuit 1:

25 Sit Ups
25 Press Ups
25 Leg Raises
25 Tricep Dips
1m10s Plank

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[4 sets] Circuit 2:

25 Y-Squats
10x 10kg Bicep Curls each arm
15 Squat Thrusts
15 Mechanical Change Pushup
40s Devil's Chair.

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I would like to ask everyone if I should simply continue adding reps as I go along, and stick to it. I also wanted to start a third circuit for more diversity, but simply cannot think of any other exercises that I could perform that aren't really already being incorporated into one of the above.

Any help/advice/suggestions for my improvement of fitness would be great!

Kind Regards,

Will.

 

[surisanj]

advice

looks good, hitting the plateau is never fun, so seems like you will have to change it up, you can either modify your plans and turn to conventional training or come up with a new circuit to "confuse" your system. Progressive overload is one of the most important aspects of training. I would say if you do the same exercises, you can increase repetitions to make it harder or increase the number of sets by 1.
You can modify your exercises a wee bit, for instance the plank i always do on one leg instead of both, incorporate clap push ups and burpees for a good all around workout.

 

[Tatteredbrush]

A good tip might be to include hill sprints between exercises. This will increase your work rate and give you a great all round body workout. I would also introduce Burpees into your circuit, these are really good for building stamina and toning the whole body.

 

[workoutdvdworld]

If you are doing only conventional sit-ups, push-ups, triceps dips - then you could try doing variations to keep it interesting. For example, for sit ups add in some bicycle crunches, v-sits, oblique sit ups. For push-ups try triceps push-ups, wide grip/crucifix push ups, incline or decline push ups, one handed push ups, uneven push ups with one hand on a platform. For triceps dips do close grip and wider grip, both legs straight out, one leg raised at a time. Also you can play with your counts. Instead of going one up one down, you can go two up two down, four up four down, one up three down, three up one down, four up one down, one up four down etc. This means you have endless combinations and your muscles will get worked in different ways.
In terms of adding in other exercises, if you have 10kg dumbbells then once again there is so much you can do! For legs try forward lunges, backward lunges, side ward lunges, fencing lunges on a 45degree angle, plie squats, narrow squats, wide squats, calf raises, dead lifts, step ups if you have a platform.
For upper body, chest flies, chest press, shoulder press, shoulder front raises, shoulder lateral raises, triceps overhead extensions, triceps kick backs, bent over back rows, hammer biceps curls, wide biceps curls....
Definitely add some high intensity cardio bursts between each strength exercise. This will increase your cardiovascular fitness and will also help you get ripped. You could do 30 seconds of tuck jumps, plyo jacks, air jacks, plie jacks, jump rope, side to side skii jumps, forward and back skii jumps, high knee running, jumping jacks....