Circuit training question

[solrosenberg]

I am too lazy/busy to do cardio and want to shed a few lbs ( about 10 lbs ). I w/o about 6 days per week and want to incorporate some circuit training to burn a few lbs while lifting weights, so I have a few questions:

1) If I am doing a shoulder w/o and am doing 3 movements such as shoulder press, side laterals and upright rows, should I finish the shoulder presses first, then move on to side laterals then upright rows, or do one set of each , then keep repeating ? In other words finish one movement first before going onto the next.

2) How much time in between sets is enough to keep your heart rate up enough to burn fat, but not jeopardize too much strength ? 60 sec ? 90 sec ? No rest at all ?

Thanks

 

[Elementality]

I am too lazy/busy to do cardio and want to shed a few lbs ( about 10 lbs ). I w/o about 6 days per week and want to incorporate some circuit training to burn a few lbs while lifting weights, so I have a few questions:

1) If I am doing a shoulder w/o and am doing 3 movements such as shoulder press, side laterals and upright rows, should I finish the shoulder presses first, then move on to side laterals then upright rows, or do one set of each , then keep repeating ? In other words finish one movement first before going onto the next.

2) How much time in between sets is enough to keep your heart rate up enough to burn fat, but not jeopardize too much strength ? 60 sec ? 90 sec ? No rest at all ?

Thanks

I'd recommend buying a heart rate monitor for like 35 - 40 dollars. You wear the strap around your chest and the watch on your wrist, really nifty IMO. I use it and what I found is that when I am lifting weights my heart rate will jump up to like 170 during sets, and then moderately drop back down to 100-120ish before i start the next set.

I could, with a little bit of a push in effort, go knock the next set out before my heart rate drops below 120 if i wanted to get circuit training or whatever. But yeah, get a heart rate monitor because there is no way someone can tell you how long in between sets to wait, that all depends on the difficulty of the lift, the lift, and YOUR endurance. Lance arm Strong's heart rate will drop back to normal much faster than Fat albert's eh.

You can use the heart rate monitor for anything, I've gotten an incredible amount of use out of it since I bought it like 5 months ago.

 

[fortunatesun]

In a circuit you would complete one set for each exercise, taking minimal rest between each exercises then a slightly longer break before doing another set of each exercise.

There's always going to be a trade-off in strength vs. conditioning when you work out. If you want to lose the weight, then focus in on that as your goal. You'll want to keep rest between sets at about 1 min. Then a 90 sec. rest after each circuit. The key to working this way is intensity. Anything longer will seem more and more like a regular workout.

Another way to do this which may be more successful is to find a compound exercise that's going to elevate you're metabolism more you would by sticking to a body part split. For instance shoulders: Why not use something like theClean Cardio found in the training info sticky and modify it to clean and press? This way you would be doing some volume training and getting your cardio at the same time.

Another thing you could do is to some sort of bar complex like the one also found in the training info sticky:http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459657 I often do something like this instead of normal cardio as my time in the gym can be limited. Keep the weights light so you can work fast and it's very important to rest no more than 1 min. between sets. About 6 sets of these takes no more than 10-12 min. and you're done. I'm sure a search on bar or training complexes will give you many variations.