Circuit Training

Part of making 2010 your healthiest year is to get some exercise. Some of you reading this may have a lot of time to work out and some of you may not. Even if you do have a lot of time, I'm sure you don't want to spend it in the gym. I am here to tell you that there is a great way to tone your body and burn some calories in just 20 minutes a day, just 3 days a week.

It is called circuit training. The way that circuit training works is to pick an exercise for each body part and perform each exercise back to back without stopping until you have performed each exercise once. I suggest doing 3 total sets of each circuit. The key is to keep moving, going from one exercise to the next, with little to no rest in between. As a result, this keeps your heart rate elevated, burning over twice as many calories as a traditional hour-long lifting format.

The moves I am going to suggest in this circuit alternate between your lower and upper body parts, making your body work harder to shunt blood and nutrients back and forth. Circuit training spikes your metabolism, meaning you burn an increased amount of calories for several hours after training.

The best part about this workout is that you can do it at home or at the gym, whichever is most convenient for you. All you need is 2 sets of dumbbells (one heavier and one lighter).

The workout: complete each circuit once without resting in between exercises. Once you have completed the circuit rest for 1-2 minutes then repeat. Do this for a total of 3 cycles.

Exercise/Reps

1.Plie squat/10
2.Biceps curl
to shoulder press/8-10
3.Walking lunge/12 each leg
4.Two-arm
dumbbell row/8-10
5.Romanian dead lift/8-10
6. Crunch/10-12
7.Push-up/6-12

For more of a challenge increase your repetitions to between 15 and 20 and skip the one-minute rest period between sets.

A sample week using circuit training:

Monday- circuit plus 30 min cardio
Tuesday- off
Wednesday- circuit
Thursday- 30 min cardio
Friday- circuit plus 30 min cardio
Saurday- off
Sunday- 30 min cardio

If any of you do not know what these exercises look like you can go to googleimages.com and type in the name of the exercise and it should bring up a picture. If you can't find one or cannot perform any of these exercises for any reason feel free to write me a comment and I will be happy to help you find a more suitable exercise.

I hope you all enjoy your new workout and this inspires you to reach your goals for 2010.