I’m looking to use a full body circuit method set up of 8-9 exercises mentioned in one of your articles with the aim of improving conditioning and hypertrophy.
I am thinking of training 4 days with a strength circuit day (5 exercises at 3-5 reps), two hypertrophy circuit days (8-9 exercises at 8-12 reps) and a cardio day (long low heart rate training). With the circuit days an RPE of 7-8 on each exercise.
I was thinking of starting with 3 sets for each exercise, building up to 5 then a deload in the 4th week, but not sure if I’d be leaving something on the table.
This is similar volume to a more traditional / straight sets set up I’ve used successfully, but might not be applicable here. How would you normally structure progression?
That would likely be too much volume for the hypertrophy circuit days.
We are talking around 27 to 45 sets per workout here!
I mean, even 27 is pushing it. 45 is unrealistic unless you are on serious doses of anabolics. And even then it likely would not be optimal.
Understand that from a recovery/effectiveness standpoint, that amount of sets done as a circuit is a lot more demanding than the same number done “normally”.
The lack of rest/almost constant work will quickly lead to central fatigue which means that the excitatory drive from the nervous system to the muscles decreases. When it is too low, it will fail to activate a large proportion of the fast-twitch fibers (which require a stronger drive to be activated than the slow-twitch fibers). And only the FT fibers have significant growth potential.
Also, from experience, the more motor tasks you do at the same time, the harder it is to stay focused on each movement and turn in a good performance, especially if the rest periods are short/very short.
There is just no way you will have a high quality of work doing 3-5 sets of 8-9 exercises as a circuit.
When doing hypertrophy circuits, I typically use 3, maybe 4 movements in the circuit.
But to me the main issue is still the crazy volume. My instinct is that, yeah, you would get a good cardio effect, but no real hypertrophy. It would become more like those “aerobics with weights” group classes than a hypertrophy workout.
And don’t forget that hypertrophy stimulation is about accumulating a decent volume of EFFECTIVE REPS, not just volume.
An effective rep is a rep where you recruit most of your fast-twitch fibers and read a level of effort close to failure.
For example, if you reach failure in a set, you’ll get 5 effective reps regardless of the number of reps performed (e.g. only the last 5 reps of a set to failure have all the requirements to stimulate hypertrophy).
If you stop 2 reps short of failure, you get 3 effective reps. If you stop 4 reps short of failure you get 1. You get the idea.
You can’t go to failure or 1 rep short on 8-9 exercises, for 5 sets, as a circuit with no rest. Or if you reach failure, it will not be muscle failure, it will be central fatigue or energetic failure.
OR you can be more driven than an overachiever on amphetamines, and you can reach failure on all 27-45 sets which would actually be way too much stress to recover from unless using massive doses of anabolics, but even then you’d quickly burn out neurologically.
More likely you would pace yourself instinctively, even subconsciously, leaving many reps in the tank and essentially doing garbage sets from a hypertrophy perspective, although it could be an acceptable cardio workout.
I don’t say this often as I like to see the positive in everything, but it’s one of the worse training ideas I’ve even heard.
To be fair, circuits of 9-12 exercises have been done in the past. That was the original Nautilus model. The gym had all the machines set up as a circuit and you would run through all of them in a row. BUT it typically only used one set to failure, Not 5.
Option 4 is 33 sets a workout (12 + 12 + 9) so I thought I was in the right ball park.
So maybe the volume issue stems from my poor assumption that the circuits could be done 3 days a week?
If I cut down to 1 strength circuit, one conditioning / hypertrophy circuit a week plus a low heart rate cardio day that would leave me at 42 sets a week and move to a progresion model that is decreasing rest time or increased weight.
Would that be a better application of the new circuit training approach?
Also the low rest and rpe of 7-8 would also mean the weights would be lower than a typical rpe of 7-8. Although that would mean potentially no effective reps…
My main focus is conditioning at the moment though so I’m happy to just try and maintain rather than gain muscle.