Metabolic Circuits by Alwyn Cosgrove

Great post by Fitness Professional Wizard Alwyn Cosgrove. Good for all of you individuals out there that believe you need to run to burn fat.


As most readers of my articles will know I’m a huge believer in using metabolic circuits and routines for fat loss and conditioning.


If you consider the normal statistic that jogging a mile burns approximately 100 calories, takes around 1500 reps to perform, and involves plyometric forces of 2-4 x bodyweight you can see where there can be some potential joint issues with using jogging as your primary metabolic training.


Let’s say our 150lbs client runs a mile in fifteen minutes. That’s at least 300lbs of force going through the knees, hips and ankles, 1500 times in order to burn 100 calories. . That’s a lot of volume, potential joint stress for really, not a lot of return. We’d need to do that 35 times in order to burn enough calories to lose a pound of fat


Contrast that with a full body metabolic circuit we can get the same metabolic conditioning effect (or probably more) with less total reps, less total volume, less joint stress and spread it out over the entire body (as opposed to just the lower body). Nick’s circuit will burn way more than 100 calories, and takes about the same time as the jogging described above.


You could even do a circuit of squat, push ups, lunges in place and inverted rows or band rows for 10 reps each and repeat that for 4-5 rounds – giving you 50 total reps per circuit, at less than bodyweight loads, spread over the entire body – while still burning more calories than the same amount of running.


So unless you are training for a sport-specific running event (such as a 5K etc), consider some type of metabolic circuit as a solid change-up or addition to your routine.


–ACPS – For more ideas for this type of training – check out the Metabolic Acceleration Training DVD.