Cardio Before or After Weight Training

A lot of people wonder whether they should do their cardio before or after weights. The answer isn’t so simple though. Various factors greatly determine if doing cardio before or after weights makes the most sense for you. Perhaps the number one, biggest influence in this answer is your individual fitness goals. Goals such as getting fit overall, bulking up your muscles and losing those extra pounds helps you decide on how hard you are going to hit the workout routines; your intensity and determination can help decide the order of your routine.

Besides your overall aim in working out, also need think about the following things when figuring out if you will do weight training first or cardio first.

1. Intensity of each component: are you performing a simple aerobics routine of steady state cardio or high intensity interval training (HIIT)? Do you perform low rep, heavy lifting or high rep training to failure?

2. Duration of each component: is cardio a marathon or short but intense session?

3. Conditioning: how do your muscles feel after cardio vs. weights? What fatigues you more?

4. Motivation – Do you have a personal preference as to which exercise you want to do first? Are you more focused earlier in your workout or later?

Doing cardio before weight training was proven to be beneficial in a small study of ten men done by Brigham Young University. The findings are as follows:

* They concluded that it is better to do weight training after cardio when the two would be performed in the same workout. * Participants burned more calories for a longer period when weight training was done after the cardio portion. * On average, participants found it more difficult to do the cardio after the weight training.

Unfortunately, this study was only conducted on 10 individuals, so it isn’t a hard fast finding by any means. Sure, there are good things to be said for doing cardio first, but what about melting away all the fat?

When you think about it, it’s very practical to do your cardio exercise after weight training. It is very beneficial for your energy level to be at its highest rate when you are lifting weights. It requires a lot of mental focus and physical coordination to successfully do weight training. A bulk of most cardio workouts involve the legs, making it extremely difficult to be able to do sets of heavy squats following a 45-minute cardio workout. That being said, the inverse is also true in that trying to run after doing heavy squats isn’t the easiest thing in the world either.

I do think that it’s a good idea to either separate your cardio and weight training sessions into different days, or to do weights and then cardio, I also suggest the following as overall goals:

1. You can increase your endurance by doing cardio first; that can be done using high intensity interval training.

2. You can increase muscle by doing weights first, then cardio; both need a great focus and energy to perform well.

3. Burn fat: it depends! Many beginners benefit from doing cardio before weight training because they can burn more calories by performing a longer cardio routine relative to a weight training routine which tends to fatigue them faster. However, if you are advanced in your exercise routine, you could do a series of resistance training followed by cardio to help maximize fat burning due to an accelerated release of fatty acids and HGH into the bloodstream.

4. Improve health: order has no impact when it comes to improving overall health

The bottom line is that there is no clear answer to the question: should I do cardio before or after weights? Doing cardio work before weight training will increase your cardio endurance, however doing cardio work after weight training will help you to bulk up the size and strength of your muscles. You must decide which order benefits you the most and helps you reach your fitness goals best.

Cardio after weight training – Your Best Bet?

Cardiovascular exercise is an integral part of shedding body fat so that your muscles will show to their fullest extent. However, the devil is in the details when it comes to making cardio as effective as possible. Very often, a trainer will fail on his goals of getting ripped – but not because of lack of effort. Rather, it will be a result of efforts being misguided and energy being misrouted. Let’s look at a few of the essentials of cardiovascular exercise in relation to weight training.

We lift weights to grow bigger and stronger muscles. This is a fact. We increase our protein, fat and carbohydrate macronutrient intake so that we are able to fuel our muscle fibers in recovery from workouts. Then, we sleep, and we grow. There comes a point where we decide it is time to shed some body fat, and display our muscle groups to the best of their abilities. When this happens, one of three possible outcomes will occur. We will fail to burn fat, we will burn fat while burning muscle, or we will burn only fat and preserve muscle. The third option is obviously the most desired outcome!

Getting down to the business of training… Let’s decide the best time to complete cardiovascular training. Very often, this will depend upon your schedule. If you’re a student or you work from home, there’s a good chance that the world is your oyster when it comes to training schedule. You can put down your keyboard and hit the gym at 11 am every day if you’d like! However, if you work a full-time job or have other obligations, you may not enjoy such flexibility when it comes to arranging cardio sessions.

Planning your cardio after weight training is a good idea for several reasons. First, you will not skip many days. Let’s face it, driving 12 minutes to the gym for a 28 minute elliptical training session isn’t always that appetizing of a prospect. However, if you are already at the gym, having completed your brutal chest and triceps workout, slumping over a treadmill at the gym for 20 minutes might not be too tough of a prospect. You can use that time to dictate in your training journal just how successful the workout was. Or use the time to check your email on your smart phone. You’ve been focused on the weights – now it’s time to just relax and focus on burning fat.

The second reason cardio after weight training is a good idea involves fuel. That’s right – your body will use whatever fuel is available for its energy needs during the training session. Your system will select sugars in your gut and bloodstream (from calories found in your earlier meals of the day) before it attempts to use stored body fat. For this reason, many trainers who sip juice during their workout never seem to get lean. By drinking water or Crystal Lite during your workout (when the sugars are being burned up), you ensure your body will consume stored body fat for fuel during the cardio section of your training day.

Finally, your central nervous system (CNS) will be least impacted by placing your cardio after weight training. Instead of experiencing two brutal training sessions each day (if you had places cardio in the morning and training in the afternoon), your system will only be forced to endure one period of extreme stress and impact. Make it 90 minutes of hell, instead of two mini-sessions of hell, and your body will love you for it!

If you can train with your cardio in the morning, you’ll serve your fat loss goals in an even greater capacity! Your body will have consumed any available sugars in the 7 to 8 hours of sleep, leaving only stored body fat available to be used as fuel in the morning training session. Consume nothing except possibly water and a sugar-free drunk to ensure no carbs are in your system to be used for energy. Burn up that fat instead!

The intensity of cardio after weight training should be low. You don’t want to be a sprinting fool with a heart rate at 150 beats per minute, unless you plan on burning up your muscle. Look at the training DVD’s of today’s top bodybuilders. Their cardio is low, slow, and monotonous. They’ll get on the treadmill and walk slowly for an hour, instead of killing themselves at an insane incline and speed for 20 minutes. The proof is in the pudding! They maintain their muscle. Follow their lead by keeping your cardio (whatever time of the day you choose to do it) at a slow pace, and your heart rate in the 120 to 130 BPM range.

Diet is always an integral par of making sure you are able to burn fat without destroying your hard-earned muscle. Stick with high portions of protein, moderate fats, and low carbohydrates to ensure the right energy sources are available for muscle maintenance, as well as fat burning processes. Keep your mental energies sharp and focused, and don’t allow yourself to become too stressed. Monitor your blood pressure, particularly when using fat-burners. Above all, have patience and be consistent – the fat burning will display your muscle like never before, you jut have to give it time!

Women and the stigma of weight training

There is a widely held belief that if a woman performs weight training she will quickly morph into something resembling a member of a 70’s East German weight lifting champion.

This belief, which is absolutely false holds back so many women from achieving the lean ‘hard body’ look that will draw admiration on the beach.

So many women become ‘cardio queens’ due to this fear. Performing excessive cardio in the absence of a changing weight training regime (that means you have to lift more than 4 kilo dumbbells!) will only help gravity pull everything south as your muscle mass is steadily eaten away.

“But I only want to be toned”

Muscle Tone is a medical word that relates to the is the continuous and passive partial contraction of the muscles. It has nothing to do with how your muscles look. Now what most women desire is increased muscular definition and shape.

In order to improve muscular definition you first need to have a sufficient amount of muscle on your body to create the curves and shape of the body. This often for women will entail building a bit of muscle to undo the natural wastage that occurs as you age. This isn’t however going to be huge slabs of muscle. Compared to a male a women has much lower potential for building muscle due to a low level of a very potent muscle building hormone called testosterone.

Woman plus lots of testosterone- a look you are not necessarily trying to achieve!

“But marathon runners are lean”

You can’t flex fat and a body with little muscle and body fat which is typical of elite endurance athletes is a very bony one. Elite endurance athletes also have an advantage in terms of remaining lean due to the nature of the sport tends to favor performance for people with more wiry, slender frames. You don’t see many elite women with child bearing hips (when did a Brazilian woman last win a major marathon?)

Lowering body fat is essential

Adequate muscle mass combined with a lower level of body fat is what will give a woman a lean defined physique. Great examples of this are drug free female figure competitors and also the early era of women’s bodybuilding. Champions such as Rachel McLish and Kike Eloma from the early 1980s.

Without additional testosterone…Rachel McLish in the early 1980s.

Rachel McLish…30 years later!!

The sport of women’s bodybuilding only became more muscle bound and in my opinion ruined with the usage of male hormones by the female competitors to increase their muscularity. Without these additional hormones it is extremely difficult for a women to add lots of muscle.

Food is your friend and your worst enemy

A common mistake women make when trying to lose weight is to drastically cut back their calorie intake. Starving yourself only leads to a break down in muscle mass and a severe drop in energy levels which ultimately can lead to food cravings, binges and a hell of a lot of moodiness!

Now in order to lower body fat woman must follow a routine of eating that emphasizes getting sufficient protein intake combined with enough healthy fats to support hormone production. Breakfast cereal just doesn’t cut it as an adequate breakfast unless you have shares in Kellogg’s. Without sufficient protein intake from food the body will constantly be eating away at itself in order to meet its requirement.

Carbohydrate intake should primarily consist of fibrous vegetables to ensure adequate intake of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Intake of complex carbohydrate (starches) such as potatoes, rice, quinoa etc should be eaten relative to the individual’s needs which are dependent on activity level and genetics. For example a firewomen will have a higher activity level and thus carbohydrate requirement than a receptionist.

Food also needs to be viewed from a different point of view. Yes we all enjoy certain foods and the bio chemistry of our bodies means that when we eat our bodies release neurotransmitters in the brain that make us feel good. Its part of the bodies’ defense mechanism against starvation.

Unfortunately the chances of starvation in the western world are next to nil and we can’t just turn this signal off! This is further exacerbated by food manufactures who are constantly trying to tempt us though their advertising to indulge.

Food needs to be viewed as a tool to achieving the look that you want with your body. It takes some sacrifices to get what we want sometimes but very few good things in life come easy!

Now once you achieve that look you want food can be balanced to include more of the ‘naughty’ things in life but it’s about balancing this out! If you overindulge, you will bulge!

Putting it all together

To summarize here are the key point to achieving a lean and lithe body

1, perform resistance training, emphasizing exercises that stimulate multiple muscle groups. Focus on getting stronger on these movements and don’t be afraid to lift something heavy

2, Follow a nutritional routine that is appropriate for your fat loss goal. This will give you nutrients to ensure your body is reducing your fat levels while at the same time giving you plenty of energy to exercise and feeling healthy. Never starve yourself!

3, Do the above consistently and with determination, make it your mission.

Surround yourself with people who are supportative of your goal and have similar ideals. If you find your overweight friends are trying to tempt you to indulge in a Ben & Jerries orgy then its time to find some new friends who can support you. The world has over 6 billion people so there is plenty of choice!

FITNESS MYTHS

Myth #1: Crunches are the best way of firming up the stomach

Too many videos and articles send the message that hundreds of crunches are the best way to correct a jelly belly but fail to take into account that most saggy abs are because of excess fat, not weak muscles. Simply doing crunches alone strengthens the abdominal muscles but doesn’t address the layer of fat over the muscles. You may see your stomach appear to grow larger since the muscles are gaining strength underneath the fat layer. The best strategy for getting firm abs is simple: burn fat and strengthen abdominal muscles at the same time. By using a two-pronged approach, fat that covers muscles is burned and the muscles are firmed at the same time, accomplishing your goal and giving you strong, sleek abdominal muscles.

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Myth #2: Women think that weight training will make them look bulky

Some women avoid weight training because they are afraid that it will make them look too muscular. Because of their lower levels of testosterone, women doing moderate levels of weight training are unlikely to build bulky muscles. For most people, weight training isn’t about building visible muscles and looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rather, weight lifting improves balance, strength and bone mass (the latter is particularly important for postmenopausal women), and can help reduce body fat percentage because muscles burn more calories at rest than fat tissue.

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Myth #3: I must workout for hours upon hours to see results

We have our priorities all mixed up and no one seems to have time to exercise. We live in the age of the microwave, where we are so unhappy if our dinner takes longer than 3 minutes. The most common misconception is that working out should take a long time. Challenging yourself for 30 minutes is really all you need. Actually if you really think about it, exercising actually does create more time because it adds more years to your life!

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Myth #4: Exercising on an empty stomach burns more calories

This one seems like it should make sense since exercise burns calories and an empty stomach has no calories to burn. It seems like you would be ahead of the game! Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Your body needs energy to run, so when you exercise on an empty stomach the body has to find fuel somewhere else. The body tries to provide energy while looking for it at the same time and can get overwhelmed, resulting in the risk of dizziness or even fainting in extreme situations. The smartest choice is to have a small snack about ten to fifteen minutes before working out. Carbohydrates are the best source of energy, so have a small slice of toast or a banana.

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Myth #5: If you didn’t exercise when you were younger, it’s too late.

Some older people tend to think that it is too late to start an exercise routine if they didn’t work out when they were younger. Studies have shown that it is never too late to start working out-you can reap benefits at any age. As we age, exercise can help reduce the risk of bone and muscle diseases and help enhance daily functionality.

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Myth #6: The most important thing is to be skinny

Though the current Western culture focuses on weight and size – and women (and men) feel pressured to be stick thin – wearing a size 2 does not equate to health. It’s true, having a BMI of over 30 (being overweight) can affect your health, increasing the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease, and certain types of cancers, but actually, it seems that fitness level is more important than size. Research suggests that people who are fit live longer, regardless of their size. That doesn’t mean going to the gym and then using it is an excuse to stuff yourself with cakes like there’s no tomorrow; though fat and fit is better than lean and unfit, lean and fit is the healthiest of all.

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Myth #7 – Only Losers Take Days Off!

The exact opposite is true! Losers don’t take days off. You see it is extremely harmful to work out 7 days a week with no rest! In order for you to gain lean muscle mass you must allow your body time to rebuild. If you exercise 7 days a week, your body does not have the adequate time to repair itself.

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Myth #8 Supplements are bad for you

This weight training myth is not necessarily true. There are a number of Safe Supplements out there that I would actually recommend you use. These are multi-vitamins, EFA (Essential Fatty Acids) and protein powders. These are great additions to any diet even if you’re not participating in a weightlifting routine. All three are completely safe and help the body to meet daily allowances of certain nutrients. There are a few others I would recommend but these are really the basic ones.

Is it better to do cardio after weight training or before?

“Cardio before weights or weights before cardio?” There is no single correct answer. Whether it is better to do cardio after weight training or before really depends on your goal(s) and focus for the particular training session, and how your body reacts to training both within the same workout.

While there is research that indicates that the order of exercise may have an effect on your performance, there are also some findings indicating that it may not. So let’s take a look at how you could approach your training depending on your training focus.

 Each person’s goals and reasons for working out are as varied and numbered as the people exercising. Some train to lose weight, others to get stronger, and still others to improve their endurance. Each of these three training goals can impact the way that you approach your workout.  So let’s take a look at three hypothetical people with these different goals and how those goals could impact the order of their workout.

 Person A: I Want To Lose Weight

Conventional exercise wisdom tells us that aerobic or cardio exercise is one of the best ways to lose weight and reduce unwanted body fat. While cardio exercise helps us to burn more calories, it can also impact the energy level that we have available for the subsequent weight-training session. So, with Person A’s focus on weight-loss, cardio before weight-training makes sense. This allows them to concentrate their ‘best efforts’ to this form of exercise while they are their freshest.

 Person B: I Want To Get Stronger

The goal of increasing or maximizing strength requires progressive resistance training. The principle of ‘overload’ – where you progressively work your muscles at an intensity level that’s greater than what they’re accustomed to – comes into play here. While you can certainly accomplish this goal in the same workout as your cardio exercise, in order to give your ‘best efforts’ here, it’s probably best not have muscles that are pre-fatigued from a cardio workout before doing your strength training. So, weight-training first after a proper warm-up, followed by cardio after weight training, makes sense for someone with this exercise goal.  

 Person C: I Want To Build My Endurance

Someone wishing to maximize their endurance (and here I’m going to presume we’re talking about cardio endurance) needs to be able to perform their cardio workout over an extended period of time. While cardio endurance training and the higher-intensity strength training workout essentially use different energy systems in your body, the fact remains that if you’re already pre-exhausted from performing a strength-training workout first, your endurance workout may suffer. So, in this instance, performing your cardio workout first is probably best.

Finally, because the order of exercise has an impact on your fatigue level, there is a safety component to the order of exercise decision. Make sure that you understand and consider that before deciding which order of exercise is best for your particular workout. If your intention is to conduct a heavy strength training session, safety probably dictates that you do that first.  

Should Bodybuilders Do Cardio After Weight Training?

Spend some time in a corporate gym and you will see hundreds of bodybuilders lifting moderately heavy weight for sets of 10-15 reps, then you’ll see them hop on a StairMaster or elliptical machine for about 20-30 minutes of moderate intensity endurance cardio. There are many reasons for this behavior, the most common being that weight training is just a hell of a lot more fun than cardio.

Apparently the weights-first-cardio-second protocol is considered the most effective way for bodybuilders to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. But is it?

The Myth

For many decades now, bodybuilders have waited until after they lift weights to start their endurance cardio sessions. The widely accepted rule is that you should perform your endurance cardio after weight training to get the biggest fat burning bang for your buck.

As with all myths, personal trainers and other sports coaches have testified that there are other, better ways to burn fat. Some say you should perform cardio before weight training, because you can burn the most calories and fat when your body is fresh. Others say you should perform cardio at the opposite end of the day from weight training or on off-days, so you can utilize the awesome fat-burning effects of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). So who is right?

The Truth

In this case, there are two truths:

1. HIIT – The most efficient way to schedule your cardio sessions, if your body can handle it, is on your days off from weight training. This allows you to use maximum intensity to perform HIIT workouts, which burn a ton of calories, recruit the entire spectrum of muscle fibers (type 1 and type 2), and elevate the metabolism like nothing else. HIIT sessions are also quick and to the point – they can take only 15-20 minutes, whereas endurance cardio workouts can sometimes last up to an hour.
   However, this can sometimes lead to overtraining when you find yourself doing intense weight training and HIIT sessions every day of the week, sometimes twice a day. Especially when life around you is stressful, it is sometimes beneficial to step away from high intensity exercise and instead choose a moderate intensity endurance exercise.
2. Endurance – The most effective way to schedule your cardio sessions is indeed to lift weights first and do cardio second. In this way you can maximize muscle and strength gains first, but still get all of the benefits of a cardio session without sacrificing muscle gains. Performing cardio first will eat up your glycogen stores and will hamper the growth hormone release that results from intense lifting.

The Science

In a recent Japanese study, researchers found a much higher rate of fat burning in athletes who lift first and cardio second, than in those who cardio first and then lift. The theory is that growth hormone levels are higher when you lift intensely, and when GH levels are high you get more muscle growth and more fat released from adipose cells. Additionally, stored glycogen will be completely used up by the weight training, so those free fat molecules will be burned for fuel. By keeping your heart rate in the fat burning zone – 65-75% of max heart rate (MHR) – you will burn fat even more efficiently.

The Conclusion

There is officially nothing wrong with doing cardio after weight training. Let these cardio myths finally be put to rest. I am a huge advocate of HIIT training and I have spurned endurance cardio in the past, but we need to be open-minded and we don’t always have to be so hardcore in thinking that endurance cardio is for wussies. Our reality is that endurance cardio after intense weight training has significant benefits when you’re trying to lose fat while building or at least maintaining muscle mass.

Nutritionally, we need to keep a couple points in mind:

• Do not consume any sugars during the second half of your weight training. You want to burn as much glycogen as possible out of your body during weight training, in order to maximize fat burning.
• That includes your post workout drink! You are just going to have to wait until after your cardio session to drink your shake.
• Water is extremely important. Be sure to drink plenty of water while lifting, and continue to hydrate as you do your cardio.

Remember, there’s no reason not to toss in one or two HIIT sessions each week, even if you are doing post-lifting endurance cardio. HIIT has a TON of muscle building, fat burning, and metabolism accelerating benefits. Don’t blow HIIT off completely.