Questions On Beginner Body Weight Workout

[dirk101]

This is the first time I've come across a workout that suggests no breaks between exercises or sets, or suggests working towards this. What is the reasoning behind this approach? My first uninformed thought upon reading was that it could lead to more stress injury than if taking 60 seconds breaks between sets. I'm still trying to look into it but have had no luck for an answer.

Is doing more sets of a few types exercises the same as doing more types of exercises in one set?

And a partially unrelated question, but how does someone know if they should cut back on intensity in a workout? For example, if a beginner does a workout until they can't do the next exercise with proper posture, and then the next three days he suffers from muscle fever. On the fourth day he repeats the workout to the same intensity, and then follow another three days of muscle fever. Is this a normal evolution of things? After how many workouts should muscles stop getting sore?

[Loren Wade]

dirk101, welcome!

I think the idea behind the no breaks in the bodyweight workout is so you keep your blood pumping. You're not using machines here. It's just the body. I'm not an expert, so I can't answer much more than that. I am sure more people here will have more insight on this.

As far as the intensity, you should always be trying to do more than last time. You want to progressively keep doing more of the exercises and your muscles will progressively get less sore afterward. The more often you do the workout, the quicker the soreness goes away.

I hope that helps. Welcome to the Rebellion.

[Oogiem]

Well I've done my own version of the beginner workout.

I take a break when I can't breathe (asthma & allergies) or need to deal with something else (turn the kettle off, I workout while making breakfast). For me doing the workouts without scheduled breaks means my pulse rate gets up into the cardio range and stays there even though I'm not doing cardio specifically. I think that is a good thing. I talked to my doctor at the latest annual poke and prod and her take on it was that breaks between sets are not necessary. However, she did caution me on trying to do the exercises that are extremely painful and suggested doing more of the ones I can do rather than fewer of the ones that hurt. On the recovery period the doctor felt that for me, older woman in menopause, overweight with too much body fat and some chronic illnesses to deal with, and with no history of significant physical activity, that I need to do as much as I can on a given day, take a day of rest and if I can't do the same level of workout on day 3 then I need to back off a bit. YMMV but I hope that helps

[Kristen]

There are several schools of thought.

To build muscle, shorter sets of bigger lifts with breaks in between. This builds strength and mass.

To burn fat, more reps and/or more sets with lower or no weight, with no breaks between sets. This increases endurance and strength.

There are, of course, endless variations on these.

Injury comes from overexertion, lack of proper recovery, and bad form, not from which way you choose to exercise.

[spezzy]

Hi Dirk!

Welcome to the rebellion.

First, for injury - circuit training is perfectly safe as long as you're doing the exercises with proper form. Repetitive stress injuries won't be caused by circuit training - thats more when you're doing the same thing day after day. For example, I had a Stress Injury in college from playing my bass for a few hours every day. Since you're allowing your muscles to heal in between sessions, you should be fine.

For the amount of exercises - it depends on your goal and how many times you're working out. The beginner bodyweight workout is meant to be done three times a week, so you're hitting your entire body during each session, so that's why there are so many different types of exercises.

For intensity - you should always be able to complete all movements with proper form. A bit of soreness after each workout is normal, especially at the beginning - after a few it should decrease. However, please know the difference between soreness from the workout and pain from injury.

Now, onto the reasoning behind circuit training:

*The goal of circuit training is to burn fat and tone up. You will not become the strongest or the fastest using circuit training. However, you will get stronger, faster, and leaner all at once, as opposed to training each of those other elements on their own. It's been proven that you get a decrease with fat and increase with muscle with this type of training.

*So it combines aerobic and anaerobic exercises.

*Constantly moving from one exercise to the next keeps your heart rate up, so its helping you aerobically.

*When you exercise with this intensity, your testosterone is increased (helps build muscle). When you go for long times, that stops and your body releases cortisol (which breaks down muscle). So here you're getting the testosterone spike without the cortisol spike. This makes you stronger.

*I personally do both circuit training AND strength training, because one of my bigger goals is to get stronger, but without circuit training, I'd probably be a lot fatter

...does that all make sense?

[dirk101]

Loren Wade: Thanks for the suggestions. Even if you think you're not helping much, it makes one feel more trusting of a forum where people feel comfortable sharing their experience.

Oogiem: That's a useful tip from your doctor. Though I'm not in the same situation as you, I'll keep it in mind.

Kristen: Helpful concise clarifications, thank you.

spezzy: I appreciate your thorough reply. You've answered my question on circuit training better than I could have hoped for, but I have to ask, do you base your opinion on personal experience or are there any resources where I could read more about the subject?

Regarding my second inquiry, you misunderstood what I meant, but I could have phrased it better. What I meant to ask was: is doing 2 sets of 6 exercises, for example as in the beginner body weight workout, the same as doing a single set of 12 different exercises?

Thanks for the warning regarding injury.

And thank you for the kind welcome, from both you and Loren.