The sand and surf are calling your name–it’s almost beach season! Instead of doing a bunch of curls, crunches, and chest presses to get ready for your shirtless summer, check out these 4 circuits that will shape your muscles and shrink that waistline.

Bulking season is wrapping up and beach season is on it’s way. You’ve put a lot of time, energy, and calories into growing your muscles while the snow was falling; now it’s time to give them definition and really show them off for when the sun is hot.

Rather than giving you a generic list of exercises with a prescribed amount of sets and reps to go through the motions with, we wanted to give you something that will keep your body guessing. The best way to transform your body is to put it to the test with a variety of different movements. The same old exercises will just give you the same old body.

For that reason, we’ve got 4 circuits of exercises that will shred your body for your shirtless summer.

Circuit training is an amazing way to give your muscles a great workout while also providing a cardio element. By moving from exercise to exercise without rest, you’ll keep your heart pumping while you pump out each rep. If you were to take breaks between each set and allow your heart to come back to rest, you wouldn’t get as good of an overall workout. With the added cardio piece of circuit training, you will burn more calories, ensuring that your physique will be on point when you hit the beach.

Read on to get your hands on 4 circuits that will put your body to the test as you look to get shredded.

CLIMB THE LADDER
Whenever you climb a ladder, you have to come back down the way you came. This circuit implements the same concept. You will work through a series of basic exercises, increasing your reps with each round. Once you hit the round with the maximum reps, you will then have to scale back to your original number of reps, one step at a time.

Your Circuit:

Between each round, rest for 1 minute. This circuit will be a killer, but worth every minute you put into it.

BURNOUT
In this circuit, you are going to push a group of muscles to their limit at the end of each round. By the time you’ve completed the 5 rounds, your muscles will be screaming at you–that’s a good thing.

Your Circuit:

As the rounds progress and the rep counts get lower, increase the weight to challenge yourself. Remember though, at the end of each round you need to hit the muscle group stated and do that exercise until you can’t anymore. You will be begging for mercy…and enjoying every minute of it.

PUSH/PULL CIRCUIT
This circuit is simply going to pair some of your favorite push and pull exercises together to make for a killer workout that keeps your body guessing. Rest for one minute in between rounds and push yourself to the limit!

Your Circuit:

The drop sets to finish each round will really bring your muscles to their breaking point. But no pain no gain, right?

 TOP TO BOTTOM (AND BACK AGAIN)
The concept of this circuit is as simple as it’s title. We’re going to have to you work your entire body from head to toe, and then work your way back up…and then rest. The beauty of this circuit is that is touching every part of your physique and giving your cardiovascular system a test as well. Check it out!

Your Circuit

These 4 circuits will make you sweat and shred you up better than any boring run of set work. All of the excess weight you’ve put on to bulk over the winter will melt away as you put your body and heart to the test with these workouts.

Good luck and happy beach season!