Weights first ... cardio second

pixiestick

If you do a bit of cardio first, it gets your heart pumping so you are burning fat while doing your weights. It also warms up your muscles so you are less likely to injure yourself while lifting. If you do too much, you will wear yourself out and not be able to lift as well or as safely. So it's a balance.

In the end, the most important thing is to burn calories though. Most of us aren't at a point where doing one first or the other first makes a bit of difference. We aren't professional weight trainers trying to maximize our workouts to get a slight advantage over our competition.

Therefore, the most important thing is to actually *do* both cardio and strength training. That's much more important than the order or whether we do them on the same day or separate them.

Just my 2 cents...

Thanks for mentioning that. My mom wound up really hurting herself because she didn't warm up before weight-lifting. It had never happened before, she lifts weights all the time, but decided to do something new and wound up in a lot of unhealthy pain.

BR1986FB

I've always done weights first, cardio second. My muscle mass is way too important to me to sacrifice potential energy by doing cardio first.