Cardio before weights? Weights before cardio?

Twoshoes

Hello!

I've been going to the gym for a couple of weeks now and I really want to make the most of it and get the best possible results. There seems to be two schools of thought on how best to structure a gym routine;

1. Do weights before cardio.
2. Do cardio before weights.

Could someone please give me an insight into the pros and cons of each of these approaches please?

In case it matters, I am female, 23,5'5, 8st and I want to have well defined muscles but I don't want to bulk up if I can help it. I have breakfast (either bran flakes with semi-skimmed milk or two eggs) before I go to the gym and I go to the gym four times per week.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

chrismorts

Hi,

Perform 10 minutes light cardio before training with weights to get warmed up. Then hit the weights. After training with weights move on to the cardio.

Peforming cardio before lifting weights will use some of your energy up which should be used for training with the weights.

It is not a case of wanting to bulk or not at this is determine principally by by what you eat, followed by rest and then training.

Having lean muscles is dictated by body fat percentage.

For your goals I would warm up with light cardio, then move on to training with weights, reaching muscular failure around the 12-15 rep range with 30 seconds rest between sets. Then perform cardio afterwards. Your cardio can be a mixture of low and high intensity cardio throughout the week.

Also, bear in mind that for burning fat, higher intensity training with weights burns more calories in the long run. Cardio only burns calories at the time. Weight training burns more calories during the session but also continues once the session is over. So think, higher reps performed in a short space of time.

Sorry for drifting from the point slightly. But hopefully this demonstrates that performing cardio prior to training with weights has no inherit benefits.

Twoshoes

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the advice! Usally I do 10-20 mins on the cross trainer before I move on to the weights and then I finish my session with another 10-20 minutes cardio once I've done all my weights.

Thanks for the weight lifting advice- I will start doing more reps from now I think!

splinter

I personally don't bother with cardio before weights! A walk to the gym and some stretching is fine for me, however, there's nothing wrong with a mild warm up.

Do more cario post weights... 10-20 mins will only see your glycogen stores being depleted and not your fat stores... bump it up to 20-30, a month later 30-40, another month later 40-50 then if you want 50-60. As the body adapts, so you want to keep it burning your fat stores.

Also the intensity is important, make your training of 65% of maximal heart rate, this is optimal for fat burning. Its worth buying a heart rate monitor to see it. The machines will often ask you to input your age and modality (i.e. fat burn) so do input it.

Also address the diet, are you perhaps eating too many carbs?

Gazz

You burn more fat doing cardio post weights.

chrismorts

If you intend performing cardio longer than 30 minutes then you will be simply wasting your time. Especially when talking 40 minutes and more.

If you feel you need to burn more calories, then increase the intensity of the cardio. Utilising HIIT for cardio you will burn more calories after the session has finished as opposed to lower intensity cardio where you only burn calories during the session.

An example of this could be on the cross trainer

Start with 5 mins low intensity

Repeat the following 7 times
30 seconds as fast as you can
1 minute low intensity

Finish with 4 mins low intensity

I would imagine you would want to keep your cardio session to a minimum as it isn't very exciting.

I'm not saying that the higher intensity cardio is better, but it is certainly more efficient.

northwestpt

I agree with this as you have used up your glycogen stores doing weights and your body is more like to use fat as a fuel when you are doing cardio. The one problem with this is that after you do weights for about 45 minutes your body is ain a catabolic stage and you are likely to be using muscle tissue as fuel as well.

splinter

I disagree, your body learns to adapt and if you do not change the modality of training due to its increased efficiency then it wont induce any metabolic changes thus explaining a plateau effect.

chrismorts

Assuming you have a pre and post workout protein drink, your body should have the nutrients it requires. During and immediately afterwards. Also, your post workout drink should contain some simple sugars (e.g. dextrose) to allow the nutrients to quickly pass to the muscles, restoring glycogen levels.

Also, we're only talking 20-30 minutes cardio - hopefully only 20 mins or so.

Then about 30-40 minutes later you will be eating your next meal.

Mattious

Sorry if twoshoes can't benefit from this but I have a quick question:
* Is it best to split the cardio/weight days up. Im thinking of working out Mon,Tue,Wed,Thur and maybe one of the weekend days. I was thinking of weights Mon,Wed,Thursday then cardio Tue/weekend day. Or would it be ok To do weights 3days a week then 4th day mixed cardio/weights?

www.englishmuscle.co.uk

Drop Setting For Compounds