I’ve always believed that supersets are better for burning fat, but strength coach John Barban tells me I’m wrong! John recommends “6 Minute Circuits” for women to lose weight, so I asked him about the methods and why his method is supposedly better than mine.

Like me, John is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, and a college strength and conditioning coach (as I used to be).

John specializes in coaching female collegiate athletes, specifically ice hockey players, and has an MS in Nutritional Science and Human Physiology from the University of Guelph.

CB: John, why circuits instead of super sets or straight sets?

JB:

We found multiple benefits using mini circuits with this workout.

To begin with, they target the entire body within each circuit. I designed each mini circuit to work all the major muscle groups in the body.

This has two effects:

1) get your heart rate up throughout the mini circuit which will speed up your metabolism and start burning lots of calories and fat. This style of training eliminates the need for long, slow traditional cardio, and believe it or not it burns more calories than a typical cardio workout could!

2) Work all the major muscle groups in your body so you get a full body conditioning and toning effect in each mini circuit.

Those are just the actual physical and metabolic benefits that are fantastic.

The other big benefit is variety. The mini circuits we use are constantly changing and incorporate different exercises and variations. They’re fun to do and keep your workout fresh.

This is a benefit I didn’t expect, but every woman who does this exercise always mentions how much fun it is and how different it is from anything they’ve ever done before.

CB: What kind of results do your clients get?

JB:

My clients are losing weight and more specifically gaining weight faster than ever before.

I would say that everyone who has started this program has easily sped up their progress in weeks, if not months. my non-athlete clients are losing pounds in record time and our athletes will be ready for their season well ahead of schedule.

It’s doing exactly what I designed it to do; it gets everyone lean and in great cardiovascular and overall condition all at the same time!

CB: What kind of clients do you use this with?

JB:

The 6-Minute Circuit Training was designed around the principles I use to train all of my elite athletes.

We started using it with the girls on the team as well as other individual athletes (I train fitness competitors, figure models, as well as individual athletes of all kinds)

It was getting them all into top shape by mid-season faster than any other program we’ve ever used, which made me happy and the girls ecstatic.

And that’s when some of my non-athletic clients who saw what I was doing on the equipment at the gym asked what they were doing and wanted to try it…

And then I realized that I didn’t just train all my clients like elite athletes…after all the girls on the team and my other athlete clients had the kind of figure my non-athlete clients were dying to have. So naturally, they wanted to train like those girls trained.

I immediately put all of my clients through this training and the results speak for themselves.

All of my athlete clients, non-athletes, busy working moms, young professionals, women who work out at home, beginners, and seasoned gym goers have switched with great results.

CB: Where can these trainings be done?

JB:

All training can be done at home.

I designed it that way on purpose. And the types of exercises we find work the best don’t require fancy gym equipment anyway, so it really doesn’t matter where you like to work out, you can do this workout anywhere with minimal equipment.

A set of dumbbells (and if you don’t have dumbbells at home, you could even use a couple cans of soup to start with) and a stability ball is all you really need.

It’s nice to have a bench, but if you exercise at home and you don’t have a bench, you can substitute a stability ball, and if you don’t, you can use the furniture in your house for almost all the exercises we use. a bank for

I have trained clients at home with this exercise and it is easy to do anywhere with almost no equipment.

http://www.6minutecircuits.com

Judge for yourself: Is circuit training better than super sets and intervals for weight loss?