What Are The 10 Best Exercises For Circuit Training?

Health & Fitness

  • Author Clint Grimes
  • Published January 25, 2011
  • Word count 812

I'd like to share what I believe are the 10 best exercises to use in bodyweight circuits. When designing a circuit, perform a total of 20 to 25 sets so that if you use 8 different exercises, you should go through the sequence 3 times. Exercises should be modified to reflect the exercisers fitness level.

Hindu Pushups-get you into incredible shape very fast because the entire body is engaged in the exercise, making it a compound movement hitting all the major muscle groups, including the legs, back, chest, shoulders, arms, hips and abdominals.

Spiderman Push Ups- are performed with your hands under your armpits, your body straight and raised in the air, and your feet hip-width apart. Squeeze in your abs and flatten your back. Lower your body as you inhale. Lift your left foot off the floor and bring it toward your head as you rotate your shoulders to the left. Look at your knee. Hold this position for a count of two. Exhale and put your foot back down as you simultaneously rotate your body back to straight, and resume your original push-up position. Repeat the exercise on the right side by lowering and rotating your body to the right as you pick up your right foot and bring your right knee toward your head.

Hindu Squats- are performed by standing with your hands pulled into your chest. As you lower yourself to squat, extend your hands behind you, downward toward the floor. As you approach the bottom of your squat, raise up on your toes. Propel yourself upward, at the same time extending your arms in front of you.

Jumping Jacks- are still excellent ways to get into shape. Jumping jacks work your shoulders, back, thighs and calves.

Step Ups- are an exercise for the quadriceps. Stand next to a bench, chair or step, with or without dumbbells in each hand hanging at your sides. Step up onto the bench with one foot and then bring up the other foot so that you end up standing on the bench with both feet. To return to the floor, carefully step backward off of the bench with the same foot you started with. Repeat the movement with the opposite foot.

Lying One-leg Hip Extensions- are performed by lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Brace your abs, and push your right against the floor while you take your left leg, lift it off the floor and hold it in the air. Do not use your low back to do this exercise, use your legs. Slowly lower your hips down until they are an inch above the ground. Perform all reps for one leg and then switch sides.

Lunges- are performed by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Step forward, landing with the heel first. The knee should be at 90 degrees and directly above the toes, not further (taking a shorter step can put added pressure on the knee). The motion is continued until the back knee is nearly touching the ground. Then return to the starting position by driving upward with the front leg. Alternate legs with each step. The lunge can be performed with or without weights.

Pull-ups- or chin ups rely on upper body strength with no swinging or "kipping". The exercise targets mainly the lat muscles in the back along with many other assisting muscles.‎ Pull-ups are similar to chin-ups, which are distinct due to the underhand grip. The difference is that palms are facing away from the practitioner in pull-ups, while in chin-ups the palms facing toward the person.

Burpees- begin in a squat position with hands on the floor in front of you. Kick your feet back to a pushup position then immediately return your feet to the squat position. Leap up as high as possible from the squat position. Repeat this, moving as fast as possible. The burpee is the ultimate total body exercise and can be used as a workout by itself.

Mountain Climbers- are performed by placing the hands on floor, slightly wider than shoulder width. On forefeet, position one leg forward bent under body and extend other leg back. While holding upper body in place, alternate leg positions by pushing hips up while immediately extending forward leg back and pulling rear leg forward under body. They can also be performed "cross-body" style.

If my descriptions above are still not enough for you to picture an exercise, all of them can be viewed on Youtube. As I said, these are the exercises that I like the best, the optimum sequence would be an upper body exercise followed by a lower body exercise, followed by a whole body exercise. However you can go from an upper or lower body exercise to a whole body exercise. Using these exercises in a circuit is guaranteed to give you a great workout in 10-15 minutes.

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