Stallone Was Right: Circuit Training Rocks!

The 1980s were a decade of massive muscle on the big screen.

And either you preferred the huge physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the more athletic “wirey” frame of his #1 rival Sylvester Stallone.

What’s interesting is that when we look at how each actor trained, we see that Stallone took a very different route to the conventional bodybuilding approach which had been popularized by the likes of Arnold.

He set out to carve an ultra-lean physique for sequels in the Rocky and Rambo franchises by building his workouts around techniques we now associate with circuit training (e.g. grouping several exercises together to form workouts which feel like a weights and cardio hybrid). It’s a training method which remains very popular today, and Stallone was doing it long before most of us knew it existed – in fact, newly published research from the PLoS ONE Journal shows us just how far ahead of the curve he was!

Sly Is One Of The Pioneers of What We Now Know As “HIIT”

We have to give Stallone credit.

In one of my recent articles I showed you how Sly prepared for his most famous movie roles, and the research which I did for that article showed me just how close he was to the “cutting edge” of developments in the fitness world throughout his 30s and 40s.

His preparations for movies like Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) included things which barely anyone else was doing at the time, including HIIT and circuit training.

You see, the fitness community of the time was a tale of two “extremes”.

Either you joined Arnold Schwarzenegger’s quest to “lift big and eat bigger”, or you were curling pink fluffy dumbbells alongside Jane Fonda’s home workout videos with messages about “toning, not bulking”.

Meanwhile, “The Italian Stallion” managed to find a space between the two.

By borrowing a handful of concepts from each camp (e.g. the heavy lifting typically associated with bodybuilding and the cardiovascular aspect of home workouts), Sly came up with a devastatingly effective workout program to help him chisel the compact, shredded physique which separated him from the rest of the 80s action movie crowd.

The implementation of these methods helped Sly create what many still consider the best physique ever seen on the big screen.

Circuit Training Like Stallone

Sly’s workouts resembled those infamous Rocky training montages.

He’d group exercises into blocks of two (a superset), three (a tri-set), or even four (a giant set), and then whizz through them back-to-back, taking a short rest break after completion of the final exercise in the circuit.

What made Sly’s approach even more unique is that he often chose exercises which attacked the same body part (ouch!).

This type of training is no joke, and if you saw me tackle his brutal Rocky IV arm workout on YouTube you’ll remember my arms nearly fell off!

By structuring his circuits in this manner, Sly was trying to force the target muscle group (e.g. biceps) to the point of “muscle failure” as often as possible in one single workout. This impacted how heavy he could lift, for sure, but it enabled him to tap into the muscle building benefits of metabolic stress to great effect, and pushed his muscular endurance through the roof, which is perfect for roles like Rocky and Rambo.

Of course, the really interesting thing here is that Mr. Stallone was doing this long before any real data existed to show how effective this type of training is, but in the years since then we now know that he was onto something.

For instance, not only do we know that HIIT and circuit training are two of the very best methods for creating an athletic physique, but also that pushing a muscle to “failure” is a crucial component when trying to build more muscle! (1, 2)

how to use circuit training for fat loss

What Makes Circuit Training Such A Great Fat Loss Method?

The first study on this topic was published in late 1992.

In this study, a group of researchers from Montana State University were trying to see if structuring a traditional weights workout into a circuit-style workout could improve the body’s fat burning response, and what they discovered was surprising…

… the rate of EPOC (the post-workout calorie burn triggered by lifting weights) increased by almost 100%, and it lasted for 25% longer! (3)

How the FUCK?!

Also (and perhaps even more impressive) the trainees who structured their workouts into circuits were in the gym for a significantly shorter time than those who followed a traditional weights workout due to the lower rest periods (19 minutes versus 50 minutes).

Double how the FUCK?!

So this was the first piece of research to show the potential fat loss benefits which circuit training can offer versus workouts in the classic “sets and reps” style, and it raised a few important questions:

Could we make results even better by changing the length of rest periods?
Is circuit training a better fat burner than cardio?
Are full-body circuit workouts better than circuit workouts which focus on just 1-2 muscle groups?

Fast-forward to 2025, and we know now the answers to all of these questions (and a whole lot more!), so check this out:

Could we make results even better by changing the length of rest periods?

The original ’92 study had trainees resting for 30-seconds at the end of a circuit, but what if we changed this?

We got the answer in 1999, when researchers from South Eastern Louisiana University performed had trainees doing circuits with rest periods of 20-sec, 30-sec, 40-sec, 50-sec, and 60sec to see if there was a “sweet spot” for maximizing the body’s fat burning response. (4)

The researchers concluded that most people see the best results when they rest for 60-seconds between circuits. Interestingly, their reason for recommending 60-seconds rest period is that most people simply don’t have the athletic ability to sustain a high level of performance with lower rest periods, so although we CAN increase the rate of EPOC by going shorter, it generally just ruins the workout by burning the trainee out.

Is circuit training a better fat burner than cardio?

Anyone who has done circuit training will tell you it feels like a “hybrid” between weights and cardio.

That’s because you’ll use a bunch of exercises which are typically found in traditional weights workouts (e.g. barbell squats, clean and press) but the structure of the session has a cardio element to it.

In doing so, we enter a “best of both worlds” scenario.

A 2008 study published by the International Journal of Obesity concluded that a group of female trainees were able to lose significantly more body fat when they followed a 15-week circuit training program versus a traditional cardio program. The trainees also improved their insulin resistance. These findings were re-confirmed in 2014, when a second study showed that male trainees lost significantly more body fat via a circuit training program versus a traditional cardio program. The trainees also increased their lean muscle mass, lowered their resting heart rate, and improved insulin resistance. (5, 6)

By the way, I’m not bashing traditional cardio here.

I love it.

It’s a great low impact way to get/stay in shape.

But what this research tells us is that circuit training is a phenomenal option for anyone who wants to shred fat, especially if you find traditional cardio as boring as a motherfucker!

Are full-body circuit workouts better than circuit workouts which focus on just 1-2 muscle groups?

Both approaches will work.

In the case of Stallone, he liked to target one muscle with a whole circuit (e.g. four biceps exercises) so that he could really punish the target muscle and achieve “failure” multiple times. He did this because he knew it would help him to build more muscle.

However, in his later years (1993 onwards) Sly actually switched to a full-body program (e.g. four exercises which different muscle groups) in order to achieve a slightly higher calorie burn.

If your primary goal is fat loss I recommend following Stallone’s latter day approach and building your circuits to attack several different muscle groups, and The American Council Of Exercise shares the same opinion. They state that the key reasons why circuit training has been shown to yield superior results are that:

Circuit training is a form of HIIT (which is already a great fat burning method)
The cardio equipment of most gyms only targets the muscles of the lower body (e.g. stationary bikes, treadmills, ellipticals, etc) whereas a well-designed circuit training program works the whole body.

Also, doing it this way enables you to unlock the many fat burning and muscle building benefits of full-body training, so that’s an extra jewel in the crown.

And finally, if we take a glance at the years in which these key studies were all done (1992, 1999, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014), we can see just how far ahead of the game Sylvester Stallone was in the mid-80s!

How To Create A Fucking Awesome Circuit Training Workout

Okay, it’s time to design a workout.

With just a few simple “rules”, you can take everything we’ve learned so far about circuit training and use it to make a fat shredding, muscle building, ultra-conditioning workout which either fits in line with a conventional fat loss goal or the 1980s balls-to-the-wall Stallone-style.

We’ll do a Sylvester Stallone circuit workout first:

Here’s the rules:
Exercise selection: Choose 4-5 biceps exercises, 4-5 triceps exercises, and 3-4 forearm exercises.
Sets: Do 4 rounds of each circuit.
Reps: You’ll hit 12-15 reps on all exercises.
Recovery: Rest for 1-minute after completing a circuit.
Structure: Perform all biceps exercises as a circuit, then take your rest period. You’ll do this four times over, then repeat the process for all triceps exercises, and finally, all forearms exercises.
Duration: Stallone would simply train for as long as it took to complete the session, no matter what.

Now let’s do a conventional fat loss circuit workout:

Here’s the rules:
Exercise selection: Choose 5 exercises which target your whole body. I like to use the PPLAC formula (push, pull, legs, abs, conditioning). Example; DB Bench Press, DB Row, Goblet Squat, Leg Raises, Mountain Climbers.
Sets: Do 10 rounds of this 5-exercise circuit.
Reps: You’ll hit each exercise for 30-sec.
Recovery: Rest for 60-sec after completing a circuit. As your fitness improves over time you can decrease this in 10-sec increments.
Structure: Perform all five exercises back-to-back then take your rest break, and repeat. You’ll do this 10x over.
Duration: All 10-rounds of this 5-exercise circuit will take a total of 22-minutes (including rest).

Which RussHowePTI.com Programs Use Circuit Training?

Of course they do!

One of the biggest benefits to using RussHowePTI.com is that you’re not only getting access to a personal trainer with over 20 years of experience, but one who also happens to be a Stallone super-fan!

So yes, I’ve got several workout programs which tap into the methods popularized by the likes of Sly and co., and they’re all waiting for you to inside the website. Here’s a few of my favourites: