Circuit Workouts for Off-Season Training and Preparation: The Swinging Door Regime

One of the most common uses of circuit workouts is for off-season training. This can be misleading, since circuit workouts on their own can be an extremely challenging and result driven exercise program, but like any workout you can tailor it to fit the needs of the situation. For off-season athletes circuit training is by far a favorite. The reason is that a circuit is designed solely to maintain muscle mass and cardiovascular health. It is an excellent way to keep the body fine tuned but without implementing the risk of injury. For any athlete or fitness competitor, imbalances and injuries are the number one fear.

The reason that circuit workouts have the ability to ward of the dreaded fear of injury is because they do not place the high demand on the body that on-season, high intensity training can. This is why a sound circuit, one that is carefully planned and implemented as a maintenance program, can be of great benefit to those whose bodies are used to increasingly difficult amounts of work and training. As a staple in any workout circuits can find themselves wedged in a couple of different stages.

While a circuit can be a great way to maintain but not strain in the off-season, it can also act as a bridge to building back up a person’s endurance when they choose to re-enter into a higher level of workout. This is why the popularity of an interval based training program matched by weights has risen in recent years. While circuits can be designed to become the bulk of an individual’s workout they can also be designed as a swinging door routine, one in which helps the body scale back in times of rest and helps the body build up after taking some much needed time away from the gym.

Those who are impatient with ramping their workouts up in a pyramid fashion are the ones that have the most resistance to using the great system that a circuit workout can offer. The good news is that the ones who are the most hesitant tend to be the easiest to convert once they try a circuit as their means of in-between muscle development. Patience is key when it comes to getting back into the game or in bowing out for a time, which is why it is really important to scale back a little at a time.

With building mass, every builder knows that you need to increase weight by little increments every time you are trying to increase your mass or increase your load. It is the same with any stage of a workout. But don’t be fooled, if you are not used to training in a gym on a consistent basis, a circuit will not feel like a ramp up or ramp down exercise regime, it will feel very much like a challenge. That is why it can be used to meet any person where they are at, whether it be a professional bodybuilder or a first timer.

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Circuit workouts