Strength/cardio

CassieJones104
CassieJones104 Posts: 76 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm doing elliptical and I have a total gym. Should I alternate my elliptical/cardio days with the total gym or do both on the same days? Wanting fitness and weight loss.

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    CassieJones104 wrote: »
    I'm doing elliptical and I have a total gym. Should I alternate my elliptical/cardio days with the total gym or do both on the same days? Wanting fitness and weight loss.

    For most people, it really doesn't matter. You really have to look at your overall load and stress on your body and recovery as well as time management.

    I'm not training for anything specifically right now, but at one point I was doing a lot of endurance cycling events and races and I had to alternate lifting and riding because my rides were often 30+ miles and that's just too much after lifting and conversely, I wasn't going to get under a barbell after I had just ridden 30+ miles.

    Now I lift and will usually do a little 10 minute warm-up on a stationary bike and a 10 minute cool down afterwards...it's not heavy cardio though. I still save the bulk of my riding for non-lifting days namely because I like to be out for at least an hour and doing both is just too much time out of my day. I also recently got into mountain biking and it's fairly exhausting...so no way I'm doing that after the weight room or before the weight room.

    Really, it just depends on what you're doing.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    What does "fitness" actually mean to you OP?
    e.g. the fitness to do endurance cardio is very different to the fitness to be a sprinter.

    Unless you are prepared to devote a lot of time to your exercise it's a very junior player in the weighloss game. It's also supposed to be neutral to your calorie balance if you use this site as designed.

    Both on same day or alternating days really depends on preference and training interference. If you are exercising at a personal intensity that compromises whatever you do second or needs a day to recover from then that might push you towards splitting your strength and cardio (think quality of training not just duration). But if you are exercising gently (can't tell from your description - that equipment can be used at very different intensities) then it's purely personal preference.

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