Trainer Scott Keppel: What Style Resistance Training Is Best For Me? Part 2

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In part one, I addressed functional training. Functional training’s main focus is to help individuals become more efficient and safer while performing “real world” activities. Now we turn to bodybuilding, power lifting, and circuit training.

Bodybuilding is a form of weight training that is cosmetic based. Individuals will body build in order to shape their physique the way they want. This is accomplished by doing multiple sets and reps of any given exercise. Bodybuilding routines tend to have more specific days for muscles to be trained (i.e. Monday is shoulders, Tuesday is legs, etc…) When one is bodybuilding, reps tend to be between 6-10 reps in order for muscle hypertrophy to occur. Hypertrophy is the increase in muscle size.

Power lifting is accomplished by lifting heavier weights (typically a rep range of 2-6). Individuals with the primary goal of getting stronger and who are not necessarily concerned with how their physique look will perform power lifting routines.

Circuit training is a great form of resistance training that allows you to target each body part in a workout. Typically done (or at least shown to you by a trainer in a gym) with machines. An individual will perform their desired amount of reps on a movement, then move to another movement with little or no rest until they have completed an exercise for each body part. I recommend completing two movements for larger muscle groups (legs, back, and chest) as well as your “stubborn” or weak body parts.

In order to get your heart rate elevated even more, I suggest you do a lower body movement, then an upper, and so forth. This will force the heart to work harder as it shunts the blood from the lower extremities to the upper ones and vise versa. This way a complete circuit training also allows you to rest your upper while the lower body is working and the same is true the other way.

Circuit training is typically done by individuals who are pressed for time and want to lose weight. However, they do not have to be the only ones to use circuit training. A more advanced way, “Cross Fit,” incorporates some of the same concepts of circuit training, but uses more free weights, kettle balls, and other forms of resistance, and are more “intense” then your typically machine circuit. Cross Fit is used by several athletes, individuals in armed forces, and everyday people that want to work harder.

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