I have heard that the best time to do cardio for fat burning is right after weight training. The lifting burns off the muscle glycogen so that when you start the cardio, the only fuel left is fat. Has anyone thought of doing a long easy cardio workout right after doing an intense cardio workout like HIIT? When I do HIIT, I typically warm up for about 12 minutes and finish with a 10 minute cool down. What about doing a 30-40 minute cool down at an easy pace? I am guessing that fat would be the primary fuel used during that cool down.

(My background is that of a distance runner. I don't run now because of injuries, instead I use a Concept 2 rowing machine. I love doing cardio work.)

I have heard that the best time to do cardio for fat burning is right after weight training. The lifting burns off the muscle glycogen so that when you start the cardio, the only fuel left is fat. Has anyone thought of doing a long easy cardio workout right after doing an intense cardio workout like HIIT? When I do HIIT, I typically warm up for about 12 minutes and finish with a 10 minute cool down. What about doing a 30-40 minute cool down at an easy pace? I am guessing that fat would be the primary fuel used during that cool down.

(My background is that of a distance runner. I don't run now because of injuries, instead I use a Concept 2 rowing machine. I love doing cardio work.)

My background is the same as yours.

Beats me what is best for fat burning. I hope some of the experts help you with that. Best for me is what I can do every day. My distance running was derailed by injury, like yours [and by other things not relevant here] I know that daily long slow distance has worked well for me for the last four or five years, that I do an hour before lifting, that I very rarely miss a day. When I got up to an hour, my fat loss accellerated. When I added lifting, things improved even more. All I have read suggests that interval training or fartlek would be better for fat loss, but I am a long way from being able to handle that.

The good news - lifting has resolved some of my running injuries. Hope that happens for you, too.

I have heard that the best time to do cardio for fat burning is right after weight training. The lifting burns off the muscle glycogen so that when you start the cardio, the only fuel left is fat. Has anyone thought of doing a long easy cardio workout right after doing an intense cardio workout like HIIT? When I do HIIT, I typically warm up for about 12 minutes and finish with a 10 minute cool down. What about doing a 30-40 minute cool down at an easy pace? I am guessing that fat would be the primary fuel used during that cool down.

(My background is that of a distance runner. I don't run now because of injuries, instead I use a Concept 2 rowing machine. I love doing cardio work.)
From what I've read the best time to do cardio is not at all after weight training. This would not be the worst time, but it would not be optimal at all. The best time, from my research and experience, seems to be 10-12 hours apart from weight training. So, either do cardio on days you don't lift weights, or do your cardio in the morning and do your weights at night.

The latter seems to be the best (again, IMO). If you can stand to have to (EDIT: that's "two") workout sessions a day then the morning cardio after a night of fasting is good, while a weight lifting session in the afternoon when you've got more energy is also good (this coming from a guy -- me -- who is not a morning person, so weight lifting in the morning is not intense at all!).

Precisely.

Each activity accomplishes different goals. Grouping them together screws up one of the goals, or both actually.

Far from ideal to group the two, as one builds lean mass, and one burns fat. You cannot do both in one session and benefit from both, but rather you take away from both in reality.

~SC~



From what I've read the best time to do cardio is not at all after weight training. This would not be the worst time, but it would not be optimal at all. The best time, from my research and experience, seems to be 10-12 hours apart from weight training. So, either do cardio on days you don't lift weights, or do your cardio in the morning and do your weights at night.

The latter seems to be the best (again, IMO). If you can stand to have to workout sessions a day then the morning cardio after a night of fasting is good, while a weight lifting session in the afternoon when you've got more energy is also good (this coming from a guy -- me -- who is not a morning person, so weight lifting in the morning is not intense at all!).

Ok, so what if you want to do cardio every day AND lift every other day, but can't do cardio in the morning? (class)

What I have going right now is an hour of cardio from 3-4 or 4-5 (collegiate tennis, off season) everyday and when i get home i do 15-20 mins of HIIT.

so by then its normally about 5:30 to 6pm. And then I lift every other day. If I lift starting at 8 is that too close?

The only other option is to DROP the HIIT from everyday, but thats only like 15 minutes. the hour cardio preceding the HIIT will not go away.

I'm cutting, u know, the whole building lean mass while losing fat. Thanks

Focus on either building lean mass or losing fat.

~SC~