One of the biggest misconceptions about circuit strength training is that you can’t build muscle when you combine aerobic activity with strength training. This is especially the case for men. It’s no secret that men and women have different goals when they hit the gym, and while a woman might sign up for a yoga class or hop on the elliptical, men head straight for the weights. What most guys don’t understand is that circuit training is not a fluffy program, and if designed and done correctly, it can not only build muscle tone, but it can also reduce the fat around the neck. midsection and make it difficult. To pop the abdominal muscles!
The next misconception is for men and women alike. When it comes to circuit strength training, there’s usually a line drawn in the sand between how much weight a man should use and how much weight a woman should use. This is a cyclical argument because the real answer has nothing to do with the amount of weight, just the quality of how you use it. The quality of the movement is marked by the quantity and duration of the tensions against which the muscle must work in a given workout. If you’re lifting extremely heavy weights, but you’re speeding up the reps to do them, you’ll lose form, lose muscle tension, and lose results.
The same theory should be applied to women when strength training on a circuit. The truth is, women always gravitate towards light weights and sometimes tend to live much lighter than they should with fewer repetitions than are necessary for muscular response. Again, voltage timing is the most important factor in making a circuit beneficial to you.
Also, since a circuit is known for its short rest periods between sets, between 10 and 15 seconds, your heart rate is constantly challenged, so while you do have “aerobic components” woven into the framework of the exercise, you technically don’t. It is considered aerobic in nature. What men and women commonly misunderstand is that the aerobic components of a circuit workout mimic traditional aerobic exercise, but are designed to create a low intensity “fat burning” workout in between strength training. Aerobic bursts of energy used in a circuit are not akin to logging some head-to-head time on the stair climber due to the intensity of the heart-healthy activity. Therefore, it is part of the circuit to increase the challenge and use stored energy sources in a short period of time, to consume sugar and calories within the system and challenge the overall oxygen consumption.
Women tend to like circuits for their aerobic components because those types of exercises seem to be more popular with women, however, if a circuit is performed incorrectly, you won’t be in the aerobic zone long enough to produce the same effects. These effects, the downside of aerobic training, that keeps men away from the cardio room is that it has the propensity to raise cortisol levels in the body (which is when muscle tissue starts to break down). Circuit strength training can benefit both. men and women, and is a hybrid of some of the best training techniques to be found in the fitness market.