Building a Circuit training plan

Celestia

Are there any suggestions out there for a plan?

My friend and I are thinking of doing a plan that is about 10 moves (core, strength, abs, etc) and about 10 minutes of cardio for 3 rounds each.

I'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions out there in MFP land!

pcbta

get jillian michaels book "making the cut" or try her 30 day shred

FitChickBritt

I agree making the cut, if you like a written out plan with different exercises each day. 30 day shred if you want something to watch and follow.

kltobin2010

I agree with, pcbta. Jillian's 30 Day Shred is a good one and it's short, so you are not spending hours at the gym or at home working out. And believe me, it kicks your butt big time!

GTOgirl1969

The 30-Day Shred is great. It sure whooped my butt the first few times I did it!

stroutman81

Do you have specific goals in mind that you hope to reach by way of these circuits?

I used to run some general circuits for a few wrestling teams I trained that went something like this:

We'd spend 1 minute at each station.

We'd rest 1 minute between each station.

These work:rest periods can be tailored to your specific goals, conditioning, etc.

The stations would vary but typically it'd look like this:

Jump Rope
Russian Twists
Walking Lunges
Renegade Rows
Jump Squats
Supermans
Pushups
Shuttle Sprints

We'd go through it 2-5 times.

This certainly isn't written in stone but the general setup works fantastically for conditioning and calorie expenditure.

TuscanySun

I have Jillian Michaels' "Hot Bod in a Box" (got it from Borders Books) Its a little box with a ton of cards in it, each one depiciting exersizes, w/ instructions on how to do it correctly. Then there are circuit training routine cards...you pull a routine card out, pull out the numbered exersizes listed and then do the number of reps etc on the routine card....boom...circuit training routine done.

Nice and easy and the box was under $15. There's like 9 or 10 planned circuit routine cards so you can just keep switching them up.

Highly recommend.

stroutman81

Phew, sounds like Jillian is making a lot of money, lol.

ronnie_ennis

give this hurricane work out a try! Great dynamic work out.

station 1-jump rope or treadmill at your fastest pace for 60 secs

station 2- step ups or scissor bench jumps, as many as you can do in 60 seconds. (use weights in hands to increase difficulty)

station 3- Medicine ball pikes or bycycle kicks for 60 secs

station 4- pushups, chin ups, or dips (as many as you can for 60 secs)

Station 5- walking lunges, squat thrusts, or my favorite jump squats for 60 secs.

do 3-4 sets continuely, only taking enough time to catch breath between. Its a great work out or warm up!

TuscanySun

Phew, sounds like Jillian is making a lot of money, lol.

:laugh: Yes...I'm definately in the wrong business!!

stroutman81

:laugh: Yes...I'm definately in the wrong business!!

I'm in the right business but went to the wrong marketing class.

questionablemethods

I just want to plug my absolute favorite resource for building circuit workouts: http://www.bodyrock.tv

The woman who runs this site not only has a killer body for inspiration (beware if you are offended by lots of cleavage!), but her workouts are BRUTAL! Sometimes I do them exactly as they are shown but most of the time I just use many of her moves and her basic structure for inspiration in building my own circuit workouts. Mostly she uses bodyweight exercises with minimal equipment (though she has recently started mixing in some more equipment like kettlebells). Highly recommended if you want inspiration to build some amazing circuit workouts!

pkgirrl

Bodyrock is great!

Another site I love is T-Nation. It tends to be geared more towards men, and as such a lot of the workouts are designed for bulking. However, they have a sister site called Figure Athlete, and there's always a lot of really interesting reads and routines.
I just started one called "Hollywood Action Babe Plan" LOL. Designed to get you a killer body like Elektra, not bulk you up like the hulk, haha.

http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/training/how_to_develop_the_sexy_hollywood_body

Enjoy! And look through some of the articles while your there haha! They push they're sponsors supplements a lot, but they give real information and good advice if you're looking to do something extreme =p

sofaking6

I just want to plug my absolute favorite resource for building circuit workouts: http://www.bodyrock.tv

The woman who runs this site not only has a killer body for inspiration (beware if you are offended by lots of cleavage!), but her workouts are BRUTAL! Sometimes I do them exactly as they are shown but most of the time I just use many of her moves and her basic structure for inspiration in building my own circuit workouts. Mostly she uses bodyweight exercises with minimal equipment (though she has recently started mixing in some more equipment like kettlebells). Highly recommended if you want inspiration to build some amazing circuit workouts!

Yep I totally came here to plug Zuzana. She is great...she's not selling you anything or yelling at you, just being a sweetheart and then showing you how a WAAAAY FIT person works out. Love her.

She has clips on youtube also, if you want to get a feel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6QJsHPJXVo

I for sure have more prep work to do before I could try one of her workouts, but that is definitely my goal, and I watch her for inspiration all the time.

Celestia

:happy: Thanks Everyone! I'm going to check out the recommendations and share with my friend. We are doing this at our local gym so we won't have a DVD to work with, but we can incorporate a lot of the exercises in the routine.

acureese

give this hurricane work out a try! Great dynamic work out.

station 1-jump rope or treadmill at your fastest pace for 60 secs

station 2- step ups or scissor bench jumps, as many as you can do in 60 seconds. (use weights in hands to increase difficulty)

station 3- Medicine ball pikes or bycycle kicks for 60 secs

station 4- pushups, chin ups, or dips (as many as you can for 60 secs)

Station 5- walking lunges, squat thrusts, or my favorite jump squats for 60 secs.

do 3-4 sets continuely, only taking enough time to catch breath between. Its a great work out or warm up!

This sounds awesome! I love doing circuits like this at least once a week! I recently switched my squat jumps to sumo squat jumps, and man that difference killed! Something else I like are jumping lunges off a step, 20 reps on each side, and medicine ball throws on a decline bench :happy:

Roger_Williams

I was impressed by all the recommendations for Jillian Michaels and Googled for her and found her site. It looked good, but when I read the privacy policy (does anyone ever read those all the way through? well I did) I was horrified to find that it says they will reveal my personal information to any vendor or service provider of theirs that needs it to target advertising or to perform services, and the only reassurance I get is that "they have privacy policies too and promise to protect my information." SInce I don't know who they are that makes it kinda hard for me to check whether I want to trust them with my information. So I didn't go any further. I'll look out for books by her, though. They can't get you if you just read a book! <grin>

stroutman81

I was impressed by all the recommendations for Jillian Michaels and Googled for her and found her site. It looked good, but when I read the privacy policy (does anyone ever read those all the way through? well I did) I was horrified to find that it says they will reveal my personal information to any vendor or service provider of theirs that needs it to target advertising or to perform services, and the only reassurance I get is that "they have privacy policies too and promise to protect my information." SInce I don't know who they are that makes it kinda hard for me to check whether I want to trust them with my information. So I didn't go any further. I'll look out for books by her, though. They can't get you if you just read a book! <grin>

She's a sell out as far as I'm concerned. There's very little integrity involved in her business plan. The trainers of the BL were hired b/c they have the look and personality that's going to sell the show. Granted, b/c the show is wildly popular, there's some good that comes from it.... people enjoy these tv personalities and buy their products, which gets more people moving. Given the obesity epidemic... I'm all for that.

But the values of these personalities aren't the greatest for the industry.

Plus, there's nothing magic that they're pitching though it seems many folks idol worship their products making them out to be something they're not.

No mean to offend anyone who likes her... this is merely my opinion.

stroutman81

Bodyrock is great!

Another site I love is T-Nation. It tends to be geared more towards men, and as such a lot of the workouts are designed for bulking. However, they have a sister site called Figure Athlete, and there's always a lot of really interesting reads and routines.
I just started one called "Hollywood Action Babe Plan" LOL. Designed to get you a killer body like Elektra, not bulk you up like the hulk, haha.

http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/training/how_to_develop_the_sexy_hollywood_body

Enjoy! And look through some of the articles while your there haha! They push they're sponsors supplements a lot, but they give real information and good advice if you're looking to do something extreme =p

I used to tune into t-nation years ago. Unfortunately, they're dishonest marketing has turned me off from their information. They take advantage of too many ignorant consumers for me to support them by visiting their site. Doesn't mean there's not some quality information in their articles though.