Circuit Weight Training: Effective or Not?

moochachip

A few months ago back when I was still in college, I had been doing weight training 2x a week while running the other 3. Now that I am out on my own, I have kept up the running and even added on another day. Meanwhile, strength training has taken a backset.

I am trying to get back into it with team sports coming up, but have trouble becoming interested in lifting 10x, waiting a minute or two, and doing the same thing (especially since I am doing it at 5:30 in the morning.) Someone suggested circuit weight training, and I have looked into it; it looks a lot more interesting and intense.

Now my question is, does it actually work? I am sure part of it depends on form, but does doing so many circuits in a row make the same progress as moving from one set to the next as in regular weight-lifting?

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for circuit training workouts, please post them here.

Azdak

There are different types of circuit training. It sounds like you are describing going through your entire list of exercises, then starting over and doing them again. This is not a horrible way to do things, but it's not the most effective either. Recovery periods between sets are there for a reason--too little or too much affects the qualtiy of the workout.

Instead of going through the entire list, you might want to consider combining two or three exercises that used different muscles as a "mini" circuit. This way you are working one muscle group while resting the others so you are getting some time efficiency, but still able to control the recovery interval.

Example would be a squat, bench press, and lat pulldown. By the time you finish #3, you are ready to go back to #1.