Tap to Read ➤

Circuit Training for Women

Bhakti Satalkar
Circuit training helps in weight loss, toning up and also give an efficient cardiovascular workout. It can be done both by beginners as well as advanced trainers.
Circuit training is a good way of keeping your fitness levels to the optimum. Good fitness level go a long way in the weight loss process as well. The beauty of circuit training is that they workout the entire body and, also keep the heart levels high. The benefit of circuit training is, that although weights are used, they do not make a woman bulky.

Circuit Training for Women

Many of us get bored, when we have to do the regular workouts at the gym, but with the circuit training, there is always a change and hence, you will always look forward to this physical activity. When you are doing your circuit training schedule, you will stay actively engaged in it.
Wondering what is circuit training exactly? Well, it is a healthy combination of aerobic exercises along with resistance training. More often than not, these exercises are alternated for better effect.
The time gap between two sets and two exercises is minimized to almost zero for better effect. Hence, the alternating exercise is NEVER of the same muscle group. This gives healing time for a particular muscle group, while the other muscle group is worked out.
Since it assists a great deal in the weight loss process, circuit training for weight loss has become a hit with the female folk. Designing circuit training workouts for women is not very difficult.
The exercises, which are included in the "circuit training exercises for women" are normally low impact, but high intensity workouts. These help in sculpting the body, burning fat, developing muscular strength along with cardiovascular endurance. Now, let's turn our attention towards circuit training routines for women.

Circuit Training Routines for Women
Now let's see what are the exercises, which can be included in the circuit training routines. At the end you will find a sample circuit training routine.

Upper Body Exercises for Circuit Training

There are a number of upper body exercises, which can be used in a circuit training routine. Some of the exercises, which use dumbbell weights, are bicep curls, triceps extensions, lateral raises, front raises and shoulder presses.
You can also try different variations of push ups as well. There are the regular push ups on the floor, push ups on the wall, wide push ups (same as regular push ups, except that the hands are placed wider than shoulder width), diamond push ups (hands are placed together). You can also do shoulder dips, either on the machine or using a chair or bench.

Core / Abdominal Exercises for Circuit Training

The regular abdominal exercises can well become a part of the core exercises, like sit ups, crunches, abdominal scissors and abdominal bicycle kicks.
One of the multi-area working exercise is oblique sit ups. They work out not only the abdominal muscles, but also the obliques. The only difference between oblique sit ups and normal sit ups is, that in oblique sit ups, you raise your torso and reach your left knee with the right elbow and vice versa.
Like the oblique sit ups, you can also the oblique crunches. To do oblique crunches, place the right leg on the left knee and do the oblique crunches for the left side and vice versa.

Lower Body Exercises for Circuit Training

The lower body exercises would be included in the circuit training for women. They are different variations of squats like normal squats, single leg squats, inner thigh squats, inner thigh squats on the bench and squats with weights.
Lunges varieties tone the lower body. You can do regular lunges, lunges with weight or even walking lunges. You can also do deadlifts with weights as well as without weights.
Now that you know the exercises which can become a part of circuit training routine, let's see a sample circuit training routine for women.
  • Warm up with jogging on the spot for 5 to 10 minutes.
  • Time to work the upper body. Do 15 odd push ups.
  • Do not waste time and 15 to 20 squats.
  • Now skip the rope for 200 counts.
  • Core comes next. 20 sit ups is what you have to do now.
  • Get up and time for lunges.
  • Time to do 50 jumping jacks.

You can start of with 2 or 3 sets of this circuit training and as you build up your stamina. You can increase the number of exercises as well as the number of sets.
If you go to the gym, you can include the various cardiovascular exercises like treadmills, stationary cycle, elliptical machine, etc. in this schedule. At the same time, various machine exercises can also be incorporated in this routine.
The beauty of circuit training for women is, that you will never get bored with it, as there is going to be a lot of variation in it. At the same time, you body will not reach a plateau only with a particular set of exercises. It will always be in for a shock, which means you will lose more weight and faster.