Strength/Cardio Alternation

daaaaaanielle

Hi,

Up until now, I've been doing virtually nothing but cardio (primarily Couch to 5K and cycling) to make the whole eating at a deficit thing a bit easier. I've decided that now would be a good time to start introducing some strength building exercises into my routine but I have some questions about that.

I've already got a good idea of the routine I want to follow for strength and I want to keep up with the cardio alongside it to increase my general fitness levels but I'm not sure where to fit the strength in. I can usually get to the gym 3-4 times a week at the moment.

Should I try and alternate between, such as Monday cardio, Tuesday strength, Wednesday cardio, etc? Or could I complete the cardio (C25K is a 30 minute walk/run) then do my strength routine afterwards? Would that leave me at risk of failure/injury? I'm concious of the fact that I know that last time I gave strength training a try, I got knocked out of the game for a day afterwards because of DOMS and I'm worried that alternating means I wouldn't be able to get the cardio done the following day. Though, ultimately, I guess it comes down to what will benefit me the most.

Thanks.

DawnEmbers

Part of the answer will be it depends on what works for you. Though it's often not recommended to do lifting after cardio if you're going to be lifting heavy or doing a long or intense cardio. Some do the cardio after lifting and that seems to work out. I did that some when I was just walking as my cardio but like having the split now because lifting takes long enough at the gym and I don't want to be there till 1 am just to get cardio in as well. Others do them the same day but split them up, so one in the morning and one at night (cardio or strength training).

I've been doing 3 days of cardio (C25k and now I'm just slowly increasing my jog time since I finished) and lifting 3 days a week with New Rules of Lifting for Women. I also work on my feet all shift at work and Sundays are my one rest day but I still have work. If you're worried about DOMS at the very beginning, maybe start out the lifting with a rest day right after just to ease back into it. You don't have that kind of soreness every time if you keep doing it. I've never had enough of an ache after lifting to keep me from doing anything. I did get pretty sore after a glute/hamstring bit of accessories on top of a heavy squat&deadlift day but I moved those accessories to the night before my rest day. And I still ran C25k the day after that one, it was just a little tiring on my legs is all.

But what works for me, may not work for you, so you have to find what works best within your schedule and comfort levels.

daaaaaanielle

DawnEmbers wrote: »

Part of the answer will be it depends on what works for you. Though it's often not recommended to do lifting after cardio if you're going to be lifting heavy or doing a long or intense cardio. Some do the cardio after lifting and that seems to work out. I did that some when I was just walking as my cardio but like having the split now because lifting takes long enough at the gym and I don't want to be there till 1 am just to get cardio in as well. Others do them the same day but split them up, so one in the morning and one at night (cardio or strength training).

I've been doing 3 days of cardio (C25k and now I'm just slowly increasing my jog time since I finished) and lifting 3 days a week with New Rules of Lifting for Women. I also work on my feet all shift at work and Sundays are my one rest day but I still have work. If you're worried about DOMS at the very beginning, maybe start out the lifting with a rest day right after just to ease back into it. You don't have that kind of soreness every time if you keep doing it. I've never had enough of an ache after lifting to keep me from doing anything. I did get pretty sore after a glute/hamstring bit of accessories on top of a heavy squat&deadlift day but I moved those accessories to the night before my rest day. And I still ran C25k the day after that one, it was just a little tiring on my legs is all.

But what works for me, may not work for you, so you have to find what works best within your schedule and comfort levels.

Yeah that sounds fair enough. My main concern was if there was some sort of distinct disadvantage from doing them on the same day or anything like that. It sounds like it might be a good idea for me to do them on the same day (probably lifting first followed by cardio) so that I can keep at least one rest day afterwards and see how it goes because I don't want to do much less cardio. I'd probably like to move towards doing alternating days but this seems like a good starting point with it.

Thanks for the advice.

Emmatyan

My trainer recommended to start a workour with 10-15 min cardio (increasing speed) , then 1-1.5 hours of strenth training, and finishing all that with 10-15 min cardio again (decreasing speed) and stretching.
If you have DOMS after a lifting session, it's fine, and you may be out of order for a day or two, but it usually happens just once, when you first start to load your muscles.

ashleyharrison3914

I do about 10 mins cardio and then weight training in the gym for about 45 mins and then another 10 mins of cardio before I leave and I have lost more weight doing this than I ever did while working out on the cardio machines for two hours!

kimberwolf71

Rest days are important for building muscle and preventing injury.

arabianhorselover

Emmatyan wrote: »

My trainer recommended to start a workour with 10-15 min cardio (increasing speed) , then 1-1.5 hours of strenth training, and finishing all that with 10-15 min cardio again (decreasing speed) and stretching.
If you have DOMS after a lifting session, it's fine, and you may be out of order for a day or two, but it usually happens just once, when you first start to load your muscles.

From what I've read, doing more than an hour of strength training is not good.

DawnEmbers

arabianhorselover wrote: »

From what I've read, doing more than an hour of strength training is not good.

Do you remember from where or have any of the sources? I don't do cardio really right before lifting most of the time because I go after work where I have been moving around for 6-8 hours. If I go on my day off, like today, I might do a little warm up on treadmill. However, with the current rep range and sets for NROLFW, and a couple accessories I do (though they mostly take the place of the couple of lifts I don't do, like the crunches), rest times and moving around to gather equipment, I take over an hour. The actually lifting isn't that long but when you factor in everything, and when other people are around extra waiting and moving out of the way, it can elongate the time spent in the gym.

Now that I'm looking into 10k training and with summer making it hard to light late at night then run the next morning, I'm considering jogging on a lifting day. The program I found online has 2 lifting day recommendations and a couple cross training, so I am making one of those also a lifting day. I'm almost done with Stage 5 in NROLFW but with the high rep range of stage 7, guessing it will take me over an hour to lift then too.

Jennloella

I do my cardio and strength on alternating days because of time. 10 minutes of cardio as a warm up isn't enough for me, I'm looking for endurance and cardiovascular health. I run three times a week and lift three times a week. so like others said, it will depend on what works for you and your goals.