Cardio Before Or After Weights: What Should You Do?

Should I do cardio before or after weights? What would be the pros and cons of cardio before weights? Cardio or weights first, what should I do? etc. If you have such questions in your mind then congrats, this article will clear all your doubts.

Should I do Cardio Before Or After Weights?

Well, there is no perfect answer to this question that fits for all. Doing cardio before or after weights – both strategies have their own pros and cons. It totally depends on your fitness goals.

First, you need to think about what your goal is. You need to be very clear in your mind that what you want to achieve by your gym sessions.

Your goal may be to improve your cardio fitness, gain muscle mass, losing fat, or just want to be fit. This will determine whether should you do cardio before or after weights.

SUMMARY: Cardio should be done before weights or after, is totally depends on your goals.

Let’s take out both the cases separately.

When Should You Do Cardio After Weight Training?

Here are the following benefits of doing cardio after weight training. If any of them comes under your fitness goal, you should do weights first.

Strength Gain and Muscle Building

If your primary goal is to build strength and gain muscle mass, then don’t do cardio before weights. Performing cardio after weight training would be a better strategy to achieve strength, power, and muscle building goals.

Why..?

To build strength and gaining muscle mass, you need to lift heavy which requires a lot of energy. So lift weights at the beginning of your workout when your glycogen stores are full and you have maximum energy.

When you hit the gym after having a pre-workout meal and black coffee maybe, you are physically and mentally charged up for the workout. Your glycogen stores are full and you are most energetic at the beginning of your workout.

Hence you should start your workout with weight training and perform cardio after weights.

Doing cardio before weights will reduce your energy levels for weight training and you won’t be able to lift as heavy as you could, before doing cardio.

Also, a 2016 study done by The Journal of Strength and Conditioning shows that people who did a 20-minute cardio session prior to weight training experienced a significant decrease in their workout performance. They performed 9-18% fewer reps in the main lifts when did after a cardio session.

So if your primary goal is to build muscle and gaining strength, perform cardio after weight training.

Enhanced Fat Loss…

Prioritizing weight training over cardio helps you in burning more fat when you do cardio after your weight training session.

When the goal is to lose fat, people start their training with cardio exercises. Maybe they think that cardio is the best way to burn calories and reduce fat.

Well, even if your goal is fat loss or to get shredded, it would be beneficial to do cardio after weight training.

In a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise shows that doing cardio after weight training burns more fat for the first 15 minutes of cardio as compared to doing cardio before weights.

Why..?

To lose fat, your body needs to use stored fat as fuel for exercise. For that matter, you have to burn your glycogen stores first. So when you do weight training, your body uses glycogen as fuel.

Now when you do cardio after weight training, then you’ll able to use energy from your fat cells which ultimately leads to burn more fat.

Increased EPOC

EPOC stands for Excess Post-workout Oxygen Consumption.

Lifting weights before cardio increases your excess post-workout oxygen consumption which further increases your metabolism and helps in fat loss.

After a workout, your body keeps on burning additional calories for about 48 hours. This happens because your body needs the energy to repair the damaged muscle fibers after a workout.

It occurs at a much higher rate after an intense weight training session as compared to low-intensity cardiovascular activity.

This is why you have to put your maximum effort into your weight training session so that you can lift the maximum weight possible. And for that, you have to lift weight first, when your energy levels are full and then cardio after weight training.

A study was done by the sports scientist of James Cook University found that “physiological stress caused by a 40-60 minutes resistance training session can continue for two days or more post-exercise, as opposed to a recovery period of 24 hours after a typical endurance training bout.“

Benefits of Doing Cardio After Weight Training:

1. You can put all your energy in weight training which helps you in lifting maximum weight possible.

2. Good for muscle building, gaining strength, and power.

3. This strategy is good for fat loss too. Since your glycogen stores are depleted in lifting weights and you burn stored body fat during cardio.

4. It results in a higher rate of EPOC and also increases metabolism.

When Should You Do Cardio Before Weights?

For most people, it is better to perform cardio after weight training. As the majority of us want to build muscle or lose fat or both. But for some of the reasons, doing cardio first can be more beneficial for you.

Here are the following benefits of doing cardio before weights. If any of them comes under your primary fitness goal, you should do cardio first.

Increase Cardiovascular Ability

For the people who want to increase their cardiovascular ability, like long-distance runners, doing cardio before weight training is a better strategy for them.

Let’s say your primary goal is to run a 5K. To give your best performance in that event, you have to train as hard as you can.

Lifting weights before cardio or endurance training will reduce your energy levels and prevent you from doing that. It requires a lot of energy to lift weights, hence when you do weight training first and then go for the cardio session, you can not perform at your max.

Builds Endurance

Doing heavy weight lifting at the beginning of your workout will fatigue your muscles. After that, you won’t be able to give your 100% in your endurance training.

Apart from that, if you don’t have any serious physique goal and you just want to get fit – then you can start with cardio. In fact, then there’s no need to worry about cardio or weights first. You can start with anything you like.

SUMMARY: It is better to do cardio before weights if your goal is to increase cardiovascular ability or to build muscular endurance.

Pros and Cons of Doing Cardio Before Weights

• Good for endurance athletes.
• Best for improving cardiovascular abilities.
• Won’t let you lift heavy weights during your weight training session.
• Avoid this approach if your primary goal is to gain muscle mass and strength.

Cardio Before Or After Weights – In A Nutshell

For building strength, power, or muscle gain – Must do weight training before cardio or do cardio in a different session or on a different day.

For fat loss – Either start with lifting weights or with cardio, but doing weight training first is more beneficial.

Endurance – If your main goal is to build endurance, then do cardio before weight training.

Otherwise – If you don’t have any serious goals and you just want to get fit, then do cardio before weights or after, as what you like.

FAQs

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I hope you like the article and got to learn something. If you have any queries, feel free to ask in the comment section. Thank you for reading this far.