Many of the UA training programs include variations of Scott’s core routine. This routine is often presented as “sets of circuits”, for example it may be phrased as “Do 3x of the core routine” where the core routine is a succession (circuit) of many different core exercises.
For example, the program I did most recently it starts with bird dog (lets call it exercise A in this forum post), then strict push-ups (exercise B), then windshield vipers (exercise C), and so on. When you are done with the sequence, start over with exercise A to start the second set.
I wonder: what are the (unintended) consequences of, and negative side effects of, instead of doing these circuits, you simply complete one exercise at a time? That is instead of A B C A B C A B C you do A A A B B B C C C?
I can see two drawbacks:
1) A good circuit is designed to aid recovery, and by doing one exercise at a time you will not get the same recovery as if you did something else in between.
2) This one is less obvious to me, but by doing a circuit it’s more or less guaranteed that you will always do all exercise with some fatigue. That is, if you do 3 sets of bird dig (exercise A) in a row in the beginning, you will not get the benefit (?) of ever doing that last set of bird dogs when your core is very tired.
My second question is really, apart from the unintended consequences: how much does it actually matter?
The reason I ask is I really really really strongly prefer to complete one exercise at a time. Sometimes I do two at a time and shift between them for efficiency (for example I do an easier exercise between a heavy exercise). Keeping track of circuits require so much concentration and mental energy for me I really can’t focus on anything else when doing the program, whereas if I do one exercise at a time I can complete the session much faster and can enjoy doing stuff during the program (like listening to audio books, or writing quick emails, or similar).
But if what I’m doing sucks I will go back to the circuits 🙂
