Intense Circuit Workouts

Circuit workouts may be an excellent choice at the gym if you want to reap both aerobic and strength benefits in relatively little time. Circuit workouts do not give you a bodybuilder's physique or a marathon runner's stamina. When performed effectively, however, they help you in various ways, from toning muscles and burning fat to boosting your cardiovascular capacity and metabolism.

Free Weights

The key to making the most of any circuit workout is to move directly from one exercise to the next with no rest in between. Perform each exercise for 30 to 45 seconds, doing as many repetitions as you can with a moderate amount of weight. Warm up with jumping jacks and immediately move on to deep knee bends, push-ups, lat pulldowns, squats, dips, arm curls and crunches. That completes one circuit. If you are an advanced exerciser, try completing two or three circuits.

Military Workout

Military.com suggests a circuit workout that takes 20 minutes to complete. It alternates upper-body, lower-body and aerobic exercises, with a total of 13 segments: bench press with a light weight and numerous repetitions, squats, pull-ups or pulldowns, biking or jogging, military press with a light weight and many repetitions, lunges, biceps curls, another round of biking or jogging, triceps extensions, leg extensions, leg curls, sit-ups and crunches. Each set lasts one minute except for the biking or jogging segments, which last three minutes, and the sit-ups and crunches, which total two minutes each.

Supersets

A challenging workout involves breaking your circuit into supersets of two exercises each. Perform four rounds of each superset with no rest between the two exercises. After four rounds, take a two-minute break and move on to the next superset. In each superset, the first set is actually two exercises in one. For example, using dumbbells, you can combine a leg squat and shoulder press into one repetition. In the first superset, do the squat/shoulder press and then move immediately to pull-ups. In the second superset, start by combining dead lifts with upright rows and then move on to the bench press. In the third superset, start with dumbbells and a combination leg lunge/biceps curl, then move on to bent-over rows.

Plyometrics

Incorporating plyometrics training into your circuit workouts is an especially useful approach if you are training for a sport, such as basketball, in which you rely on quick, explosive movements. In this circuit, you use plyometrics to put a twist on standard circuit exercises. For example, instead of standard body-weight squats, perform squat jumps. Start off the circuit with that exercise, then move on to medicine ball slams, exploding push-ups, step jumps or box jumps and medicine ball squat throws. For the last exercise, you will need a lot of open space; it is not suitable for indoor workouts.

Tabata

Tabata circuits last only four minutes but make up for their brevity with intensity. The circuit takes its name from the Japanese doctor who came up with the workout, which can dramatically improve muscular endurance. In Tabata training, go all-out with a single exercise for 20 seconds and then rest for 10 seconds, performing eight sets of the exercise. Choose a compound exercise such as leg squats or upper-body presses, or try using kettlebells. Even advanced exercisers who perform the Tabata circuit generally find they can do it no more than once a week.