From Nick Berners-Price, 4D Personal Trainer in South West London
I was with a client a few months ago who I’ve been training for years. He’s a great guy who runs the Ministry of Defence legal team. I said to him, “Right, we’re going to change things up a bit, and start doing some circuit training.” He looked a bit confused, but said nothing and carried on. After a warm up, I said again, “OK time to start the circuit training now”, and he said, “OH, you said circuit training. I thought you said Turkey Training!”…. and 4D Turkey Training was born.
Really good circuit training is one of the most powerful tools available to a personal trainer, and I’ve been using it for more years
than I care to remember with my clients in South West London. Studies at Baylor University and The Cooper Institute show that circuit training is the most time efficient way to enhance cardiovascular fitness and muscle endurance (1). Studies also show that circuit training helps women to achieve their goals and maintain them longer than other forms of exercise or diet. Here are the basic rules to really good circuit training for personal trainers, now called Turkey Training:
Perform every set to maximum. Don’t time the sets, rep the sets or in any other way limit the sets – the set is done when no
more reps can be completed.
Go directly from one set to the next without rest.
Control the load to work through from low rep strength exercises to high rep endurance exercises in the same circuit.
Use 4-5 stations in each circuit, complete 3-4 times, and use 2-3 different circuits in any one session.
Design the entire workout to balance training for all body movements, not muscle groups! So a pull up does not balance a press up – a compound row would balance a press up, and an overhead press would balance a pull up. Ensure that the client has performed balanced training for all body movements by the end of the workout. This takes some planning! TRX Suspension Trainers are very useful to help achieve this for circuits in clients’ homes.
Using these basic rules Turkey Training will increase muscular strength, muscular endurance, metabolism and cardiovascular fitness faster than anything else! Many amateurs get confused between Aerobic and Cardiovascular training – you don’t have to do
aerobic training to increase CV fitness. ALL runners and endurance athletes should be turkey training.
At the end of the first ever 4D Turkey Training session my client turned to me and said, “Now I’m truly basted and plucked”. Well, I think he said plucked…
Nick Berners-Price, 4D Personal Trainer in South West London
(1) Heavin, Gary and Colman, Carol, C. Reprint edition (December 7, 2004). Curves: Permanent Results Without Permanent dIeting, ISBN039952956X
