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The limitation of the 400 meters is not lactic acid, or lactate for that matter. Rather, it’s acidosis, or the increase of positive H+ hydrogen items that limits the muscles.
How can you tolerate this? How can you build up a resistance to this, other than typical extensive tempo workouts or special endurance workouts?
Let’s review the energy systems for a moment before designing your Circuit Training routine:
- 0-1 sec – ATP/CP (i.e. shot put)
- 1-7 sec – Anaerobic (i.e. 60 meters)
- 7-40 sec – Anaerobic Alactic (i.e. 100-200m)
- 40 sec – 2 min – Anaerobic Lactic (i.e. 400-800m)
- 2 min – 4 min – Anaerobic Aerobic (i.e. 800-mile)
- 4min + – Aerobic (i.e. mile, 5K and up)
More Circuit Training Examples
I posted previous samples of various circuit training workouts. One was a 30 minute circuit routine, and the other 31.5 minutes circuit routine. These are great for athletes as well as everyday people for fat loss and weight loss, too.
Here is another Circuit Training workout from the College archives.
Each circuit is repeated every 5 minutes, with the routine taking about 2.5 minutes. If it takes 2:20, then you have 2:40 of rest. If it takes 3:00, then you have 2:00 of rest.
Start with 4 sets, and build up to 6 sets. The whole routine takes less than 30 minutes, and you can do this in the comfort of your home or hotel room. Once a week is sufficient but if you have an injured athlete, they can do this 3 times a week if none of the exercises aggravate the injury, just to keep fitness.
To keep your Youth and College athletes honest, schedule this workout on Saturday at 10am (or 9am if you are really cruel!). This forces them to go to bed early on a Friday night, and if they want to party hardy, then Saturday night is the only chance, with Sunday being a rest day study day.
Otherwise they’ll pay the price on Saturday morning!
There is no rest between the exercises. If you can do the set under 2 minutes, then increase the reps to 25:
- Step Ups (20 each leg)
- Push Ups (20)
- Chin-to-knees modified sit-up (20)
- Superset: Military Press, Upright Row, Bicep Curl (10 reps each, 30 total)
- Crunches (20)
- Chin-ups (10)
- Straddle jump with medicine ball (20)
Be creative and use equipment in your facilities. Change the routine every 4-6 weeks to avoid getting stale, and you will become efficient in certain exercise.
For more circuit training workouts “bootcamp” style, check out Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training Bootcamp Workouts! It comes complete with 21 pre-designed workouts that you can use out of the box.
Jimson Lee
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