Cardio Before or After?

ginger86 · Mon, January 26th, 2004, 08:16 PM

This may have already been asked and answered so I apologize in advance. I'm new to working out and I'm still trying to establish a routine that works for me. Is it better to do cardio before weight training or after? I am currently doing it before and it seems to be working but I've also heard you should do cardio after. What is everyone else doing? Does it really matter or does it come down to personal preference? Thanks.

Lisa Stone · Mon, January 26th, 2004, 09:59 PM

I always do cardio on a different day than weight training days, and I always do it in the morning before I eat, at least thats how I did it before, but now that I am starting over, I'll do the same routine

corbint · Mon, January 26th, 2004, 11:31 PM

hey lisa, do you and john workout together, or do you both do your routines separately? do your cardio days fall in line with his lifting days, so you are both working out together, just doing different things?

my wife is planning her cardio and lifting plan right now, and we figure this would be something great to do together, except we know that if we lift on the same days together, it will take longer because stripping the weights between sets will add time, etc.

tell us how your workout is structured with john... thanks!

map200uk · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 06:05 AM

hey ginger86,

before or after, hmm id say before personally, but if possible try to do cv on a different day i.e. 3 day split with days off being used for cv (maybe HIIT) this would mean your in and out within 15mins on cv days.

Along with that, as someone said they go before they eat, i thought id mention that it is a good time to go before you have eaten at all (burns more calories)

Mark

BlackBeauty · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 07:51 AM

Hi Ginger,

I adivse that you do 5 minutes of a quick cardio warm-up before doing weight-training, then do your full cardio session after completing weights.

You should never do weights without a warm-up of some sort even if just some skipping, star-jumps/jumping jacks or running on the spot. Your muscles will be warmed up and ready to do some serious work - furthermore, you reduce the risk of injury.

Finish off with cardio then a good stretch through all of your muscles.

Of course, you should be allowing sufficient time in between workouts to allow your body to completely recover.

Good luck with it!

Cheers,
Leila.

xray · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 08:29 AM

I read in a Norwegian fitness magazine that cardio should be done after weight lifthing. That way you're not all worn out after cardio, and for that reason can lift as "hard" as you'd prefere. That makes very good sense to me, anyway, far from beeing an athlete... Warm up before weight lifting should be as important as warm up before any kind of exercise.

map200uk · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xray

I read in a Norwegian fitness magazine that cardio should be done after weight lifthing. That way you're not all worn out after cardio, and for that reason can lift as "hard" as you'd prefere. That makes very good sense to me, anyway, far from beeing an athlete... Warm up before weight lifting should be as important as warm up before any kind of exercise.

hey
err cardio after does make sense yea, and i can see why. However some people are of the opinion that cardio before is good as it acts as a warmup..light cardio at that

as ever differing views and such

Mark

ginger86 · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 08:39 AM

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm meeting with a personal trainer next week as I get two free one hour sessions with my gym membership so I will ask him/her what they suggest also. As I'm new to this I haven't got a plan down yet and I'm still playing around with a routine, trying different things, see how my body responds, etc. I'm learning so much on this site. I am so thankful to John and Lisa for the time they are spending on it. Again, thanks everyone for all of the useful knowledge.

Gohan · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 03:27 PM

When you meet with the personal trainer, be careful of him/her spending the entire time trying to sell you things. That's what they did when I went to my free session, and I kept thinking, "When do I get to ask my questions?".

corbint · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gohan

When you meet with the personal trainer, be careful of him/her spending the entire time trying to sell you things. That's what they did when I went to my free session, and I kept thinking, "When do I get to ask my questions?".

thats the problem with "personal trainers" these days. back in the day, it was teacher / student. they instructed, taught, etc and expected you to depart from their services in a month or two. these days, they HOPE you hang on to them for a year or two.

i absolutely love watching personal trainers have people do dumbbell bench presses, or squats, standing on those medi-balls at my gym. they claim its to develop their core muscles, but could be just as easily(and SAFER) if they just did squats!

Jingo · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 04:05 PM

i'd definatly say to do cardio after weights, if you are doing both in the same session. BUT you do need that 5 min cardio warm up.

Lifting weights is best done when you are warming up but stull full of energy, if you do it after cardio you'll be more tired, won't get the max work out you need when liftint weights and are more likely to be sloppy and tired and get injured. It doesn't matter too much if you do cardio while tired as you don't go to max or really push your muscles.

Of cause as others have said, if you can totally split the two, that's even better, but we can't all do that.

Lisa Stone · Tue, January 27th, 2004, 05:16 PM

Quote:

hey lisa, do you and john workout together, or do you both do your routines separately? do your cardio days fall in line with his lifting days, so you are both working out together, just doing different things?

We never work out together, corbint, because I am always at work by the time John works out.
I still have to get started, but I'll work out with weights at night after work and that way John is available to help me if I need it.

It would be nice if we could workout together, but our schedule doesn't really allow it.

shaknbak · Wed, February 4th, 2004, 07:15 PM

Ginger,

I asked the same question some time ago of myself when I started a new workout program. I used to do a cardio workout prior to lifting to "Warm-Up". I never though much about it.
However after finding John's site several months ago and deciding to do a little more research I found that according to some beliefs that doing cardio and working out at the same time is counter productive.
From what I remember reading:
Your muscles have glycogen stored in them for energy. When you do activity, the muscles pull from the glycogen store for energy first. Then when that is depleted, they go to the next source of energy (Protein), which are the muscles. Basically, they start feeding on themselves (Catabolism).

That said, if you do a cardio workout, then follow-up with a weight program, you are potentially feeding on your own muscles, which you don't want to do. Flip the order around, and the same thing.

If you can't do the cardio on a different day than you workout, I would suggest splitting it up throughout the day. For example I do my strength training in the morning before work, then when I get home I do a quick 25-30 min cardio.

I've been taking this approach for a few months, and it seems to be working better for me. I'm adding muscle faster than I did when I used to do them both together.

I believe I found this out by going to www.ast-ss.com and reading their FAQ's. I realize that you do not want to bulk up like a man, which is what that site is geared for. But I have found tons of information regarding the physiology of weight lifting at that site in the FAQ’s. They get into a lot of detail about what is going on in the body.

My two cents based on what I have read, but I’m by no means an expert