Full-body workouts target all the major muscle groups in one intense session. Circuit training is a time-efficient training technique that cuts out the wasted downtime during your workout; you move from one exercise to the next with as little rest as possible. Create an extreme, full-body dumbbell workout by integrating multi-joint movements in a circuit-training session.
Exercises
Compound exercises involve more than one joint and work more than one muscle group. Olympic-style lifts are explosive, compound exercises that are typically done with a barbell. The National Strength and Conditioning Association notes that doing these exercises with dumbbells requires more balance and coordination than doing them with a barbell. It also adds more variety to your routine and recruits more stabilizer muscles. Design your workout around squats, presses, snatches, deadlifts and rows.
Design
Circuit training involves performing a series of exercises with no to little rest between stations. Because you don't have a lot of rest time, you should design the circuit so two consecutive exercises don't work the same muscle. For example, if the first station is squats, don't make the next station deadlifts. Throw in something for your upper body, such as rows or presses. Most circuits consist of six to 10 exercises, but there is no set standards, so feel free to play with the design.
Duration
You can do each exercise for a certain amount of repetitions, such as 10 reps, or for a certain amount of time, such as 30 seconds. Ideally, you should rest as little as possible between exercises, but you may have to rest some depending on the intensity of the workout, which is determined by the duration of the exercise and rest periods. Long rest periods make for a less intense workout than short rest periods.
Considerations
Warm up with light cardio or body weight movements for five to 10 minutes before jumping into your circuit-training workout. Do not do two full-body dumbbell workouts two days in a row. Muscle needs time to rest and recover between workouts. Take at least one day off between full-body workouts. If you find it difficult to move from one exercise to the next with no rest, replace your rest periods with light cardio or abdominal work to better utilize this time.
Member Comments