Unusual but Effective Creative Circuit Training Workouts for Fat Loss

There are dozens, if not hundreds of circuit training routines that are effective at helping you drop body fat.

I was doing my daily cruising of the Internet and found an outline of a routine by Nick Nilsson, author of “Metabolic Surge”, that reminded me of the large variety of effective circuit training routines.

I’ll give you an outline of the routine he recommends as well as a few others that I’ve recommended in the past.

Use these as a reference when constructing your own ideal fat burning circuit.

No Such Thing As an Ideal Circuit Training Routine

To put it in the most basic form, the idea of circuit training is to challenge your muscles while building a bit of aerobic capacity at the same time.

Circuits can be done with weights, machines, your body weight, mixing cardio exercise and machines, mixing cardio and weights, etc.

The bottom line is that you are providing resistance to your muscles in a way that “feels” like a cardio workout at some point.

You can do circuits in a way that is more geared towards resistance and less cardio -or- you can make it feel closer to cardio with less focus on resistance training.

I Like to Perform Circuits In A Way That Targets Fat Loss

I mainly do circuits in a way that targets fat loss, but this is by no means the only way to do circuit training.

My method is to separate the main part of my lifting from body weight circuits.

I like to lift 3-4 times per week and do Body Weight Circuits as a way to get in a brief fat burning workout when I don’t want to trek to the gym.

You Can Do Circuits With Nothing But Weights As Well

I used to think that doing a circuit training routine with weights was pure madness and an unrealistic way to train in the gym.

It is pretty much impossible to use 6-10 pieces of equipment in a busy gym.

My mind was changed about a year and 1/2 ago, when a reader of this site e-mailed me an outstanding circuit training routine that could be done with just one barbell using the same weight for all of the exercises.

HIIT – Similar Concept to Circuit Training

Some people don’t consider sprint intervals on a treadmill or running stairs to be circuit training, but I do.

The outcome and feel of this type of exercise is very similar to doing a circuit.

The main difference is that you don’t typically get the whole body resistance training of other types of circuits.

Nick Nilsson’s “Weights + Cardio Fat Loss Circuit”

Nick has a routine that combines HIIT with circuit training.

He isn’t the first to do this, but reading his routine reminded me of how effective these types of routines can be for dropping weight while maintaining muscle mass.

The downside of this routine is that it won’t be easy in every gym, it will probably work best in a home gym.

An Outline of Nick’s Circuit Training Routine

You will be performing 40 seconds of cardio (treadmill, exercise bike, stairmaster, jump rope, etc) followed by one set of weights with no rest in between.

You continue in this manner without rest for the entire workout.

Workouts last 30-40 minutes with no rest in between sets.

The idea is to get an entire cardio workout done in the same amount of time as it takes to do a typical weight training routine.

The benefits of doing this without rest is similar to doing a typical HIIT routine (more calories burned than normal cardio, large release of HGH, a metabolism boost, etc.)

Here is What A Sample Routine Looks Like

Here is a sample routine taken directly from Metabolic Surge:

Back: Bent Over Barbell Rows or Seated Cable Rows – 6 sets of 6-8 reps. Be sure to keep your lower back arched and tight when performing either of these exercises.

Chest: Flat Barbell or Dumbbell Bench Press – 6 sets of 6-8 reps. Don’t bounce the bar off your chest as you lower it down. As well, don’t bang the dumbbells together at the top.

Biceps: Standing Barbell Curls or Dumbbell Curls – 4 sets of 6-8 reps. Squeeze your biceps hard at the top and don’t swing the weight. Use a shoulder-width grip on the bar for best biceps contraction.

Calves: Standing Calf Raises or Seated Calf Raises – 4 sets of 10-12 reps. Perform this movement under control. Don’t bounce out of the bottom and be sure to give your calves a good squeeze at the top.

Cardio: Take no rest as you move between 40 seconds of cardio work and your weight training sets. Have everything set up and ready to go with your exercises as much as possible. If you are in a crowded gym and must wait for equipment or are unable to pre-set, just do the best you can.

No “Holy Grail” When it Comes to Circuit Training Routines

Part of the reason I wanted to write this post was to let people know that there really isn’t an ideal circuit training routine. So many variables can be adjusted depending upon your goals.

A lot of what you do will be decided by what equipment you have available as well.