In the last article I discussed the value of strength specific circuit training. Although it may not be practical for those who train in a crowded gym, I don’t see any reason why not to include it in your training if have the opportunity to set up for it.
While circuit training is often used to emphasize general conditioning, you can definitely use it in a manner that emphasizes strength development. Of course, any type of strength training should emphasize the use of the creatine phosphate system which operates best in the absence of too much muscle fatigue. It’s also hard to operate in the creatine phosphate system if you are completely out of breath, which is one reason I advocate the use of mini-sets for strength specific circuit training.
Light, Medium or Heavy for Different Exercises
Even if you are using mini-sets, you can still vary the weight and rep range for various exercises. Many lifters like to use light, medium, or heavy weights on different days, but you can easily incorporate varying weights into the same circuit training workout using mini-sets. I’ll give you an example. We’ll imaging that you want to do a workout where you go light on the bench press, medium heavy on pulley rows, and fairly heavy on squats. If so, you would set up a circuit with those three exercises. Each time you do benches, you would do eight to ten reps with only 40% of your one rep max. On your next set, you would move right into seated pulley rows and do three or four reps with 60% of your one rep max. Your last exercise of the circuit would be a heavy set of squats for just one rep at about 80% of your one rep max. This circuit would be repeated several times to make up a workout, and you could change which exercises are done with light, medium, and heavy weights on different workout days.
How Many Circuits?
How many circuits should you do in a workout? This will be determined by the feedback that your body is giving you. Generally, the idea for strength development is to keep repeating the circuits until you feel your rep speed starting to slow down on your last rep of a set, then stop doing that exercise.
It could be that your rep speed starts to slow down on one exercise before the others. If so, stop that exercise and continue with the others until your rep speed slows down on the other exercises. With some trial and error, you’ll be able to figure out how many mini-sets of each exercise you can do, and you can make any necessary adjusts to the amount of weight and reps you are using so that your stopping point will be at approximately the same set number for each exercise.
Combining Mini-Sets with Full Sets in a Circuit
One caution about circuit training is that I’ve tried pushing all the way to my marker rep on each set of a circuit for the whole workout. Pushing to your marker rep basically means you push a set until your rep speed starts to slow down. I have found that it can be exhausting to train like this while moving quickly from one set to the next on every set, and you may find the same thing. Exhaustion is not good for strength specific training. However, if you still want the benefit of pushing all the way to your marker rep on some of your exercises, you can combine the use mini-sets and full sets so that you can still move from one exercise to another without getting out of breath.
An example of combining mini-sets with full sets into circuit training would be to do a circuit consisting of deadlifts, incline presses, and dumbbell lateral raises, which are all done as mini-sets where you do about a third of the reps you could do if pushing to your marker rep. We’ll imagine that you also want to include some full sets of T-bar rows where you push all the way to your marker rep for about 12 reps. Since a full set of T-bar rows is going to take more out of you than the mini-sets of the other exercises, you won’t be able to do as many sets of T-bar rows as the other exercises, so only include them in every second or third circuit. In the next workout, you could do the same exercises, but instead of pushing to your marker rep with T-bar rows, choose one or two of the other exercises to push to your marker rep.
As I said in the previous article, there are no rules about how to do circuit training. You can mix up the poundages and rep schemes for different exercises however you want. The main thing is to exercise as long as you are strong and quit when you reach a set where your strength and rep speed begins to decline. Then you’ll be doing circuit training in a strength specific manner while saving time and getting some extra cardio benefit. Best of training to you.