How to Design a Home Circuit Training Routine

Circuit training is a great way to combine aerobic exercises with strength training exercises. A typical circuit routine combines several repetitions of a strength training exercise followed by a short spurt of aerobics.

Each set includes a different strength training exercise and may or may not include different types of aerobics. By alternating between aerobic exercises and strength training you are burning calories and fat as well as building lean muscles.

Some gyms are set up and designed to make moving from strength training to aerobics easy and effective. However, not every one has access to a gym, but you can build an circuit training routine at home. The trick to an effective home circuit training exercise routine is to find the right strength training and aerobic exercises that works best for you and your exercise level using the equipment you have available.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Workout area
• Exercise equipment (optional)

1. Pick your strength training equipment.
   
   Although most people think of weight lifting when talking about strength training, this is not the only available method to strengthen and tone your muscles. You can use resistance bands, dumbbell weights or even perform body weight exercises. The key to effective strength training is to provide proper resistance and perform the exercise correctly. If you select resistance bands or dumbbell weights be sure to have multiple strengths of bands and multiple weights to be able to increase or decrease resistance to the muscles as needed.

2. Pick your aerobic exercise
   
   Selecting an aerobic exercise to do at home is easy as you have many different choices without having to have expensive exercise equipment. If you do have the luxury of a treadmill or elliptical machine, then these are great choices for your aerobic exercise. But if you want to mix it up or do not have access to these pieces of equipment, then you can do many other aerobic exercises from home. You can simply run or jog in place, jump rope (with or without a rope) or one of my favorites is to jog up and down a single step.

3. Design your Circuit Training Routine
   
   Now that you know what strength training you are doing and have picked your aerobic exercise, it’s time to build your routine. Remember that a typical circuit training alternates between strength training and aerobics. Your routine can focus on all upper body muscles, lower body muscles, core strengthening or a mix of all the major muscle groups. Depending on the number of repetitions you plan, your strength training exercise will take anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes per muscle. Your spurts of aerobics should be a minimum of 1 minute up to 5 minutes. For a 30 to 45 minute workout, pick 2 to 3 upper body, lower body and core exercises. Add your spurts of 1 to 3 minutes of aerobics in between the strength training sets.

4. Alter Your Circuit Training Exercise Routine
   
   You can vary your circuit training by selecting different aerobic exercises and different methods of strength training. Additionally you can vary the routine by the time periods of sets and spurts of aerobics. For example, you can perform your circuit training by alternating between aerobics and strength training every 30 seconds and cycle through the routine 2 to 3 times to get to a total of 30 or 45 minutes of total exercise. As with any exercise routine, remember to warm up first, stretch your muscles and then cool down and stretch again.

Tips & Warnings

• If this is your first attempt at circuit training, start out slow by selecting only a handful of strength training exercises and limit your aerobic spurts to 1 minute.
• Increase the number of strength training exercises and/or repetitions as you get used to circuit training and also increase the duration of your aerobic segment.
• Always warm up and stretch before you start your routine.
• Always cool down and stretch after your routine.

Resources

• Try these example circuit training routines