Working out the right timings for a circuit training session

Speaker 1: Hey, great news. I've been asked to run a circuit training session by the gym manager.

Speaker 2: That's great, well done.

Speaker 1: Thanks, I was wondering if you could help me work out the structure?

Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1: Class is an hour long, so I'm thinking about breaking it down into minutes, so that would leave us with 60 minutes.

Speaker 2: Okay, well you need to factor in a warm-up and a cool-down.

Speaker 1: That's right, I need 10 minutes for a warm-up and 5 minutes for a cool-down, so I must take 15 minutes away from the 60 minutes, which will leave me with 45 minutes for the exercises.

Speaker 1: So with circuit training, you have various stations.

I've been told that 6 works well because it makes it enough of a variety.

Speaker 2: Alright, that sounds good.

What do you think they should be?

Speaker 1: I've chosen steps, kettle bells, a mat, boxing gloves, skipping rope, and then room for star jumps, and push-ups, and press-ups, things like that.

Speaker 2: OK, so how are you going to split up the time between each?

Speaker 1: Well, they need to spend the same amount of time at each station so that they can swap around.

So I've got to start off by dividing 45 minutes by 6 stations.

But they can't stay on each station for 7 and a half minutes. That's too long, they need variation.

Speaker 2: That's true, I'd say 1 and a half minutes is a good amount.

Speaker 1: If they spend a minute and a half on each station, plus the 30 seconds to get to the next station, that's 2 minutes.

And we've got 6 stations, so that's 12 minutes.

So if 1 circuit is 12 minutes, that means 2 circuits are 24 minutes, 3 circuits are 36 minutes, and 4 will be 48 minutes.

Speaker 2: Hang on, but you only have 45 minutes don't you?

Speaker 1: That's right.

Speaker 1: So we could do 3 complete circuits and have 9 minutes left, or if we do 4 circuits, they'll only have 12 minutes for the warm-up and the cool-down. What do you think?

Speaker 2: Do they have to be complete circuits?

Could they start at one place and end in another?

Speaker 1: Well as long as we're exercising all parts of the body, then we're OK.

Speaker 2: OK, so what does that mean now?

Speaker 1: So 3 circuits takes 36 minutes, so we've still got about 9 minutes left.

Speaker 2: Well 9 divided by 2, for each station, gives you 4 with 1 minute left over.

Speaker 1: So they'll be able to do 4 more stations and have 1 minute left before the cool-down.

Speaker 2: That's a great idea!