Cardio to strength ratio?

Sounds like you want to recomp, which means you need to start picking up some heavy weight. And probably eating more, but that's just a guess. If you like cardio, keep doing it. But if time is the issue and it comes down to giving something up, give up the cardio.

it really depends on your goals, but it sounds like you should be doing a little less cardio, and a little more strength training.

3-4 days of strength training, and 2-3 days of cardio is the general rule of thumb.

It largely depends on your goals. Generally 3x weekly for strength training and 3x weekly for cardio (30-60 minutes) is a good balance for general fitness. If you want to run marathons, obviously you're going to put more emphasis on the cardio...if you want to body build or be a power lifter, obviously you'd want to spend a bit more time in the weight room.

Definitely for body comp, you want to get some good resistance work in for sure...diet and cardio don't do nearly as much for body comp as diet and resistance work. Also remember...cardio is just weight lifting for your heart and cardiovascular system.

It depends on what you have time for. Maybe go for 30-60 min. cardio 2x a week and a full body routine 3x a week.

For me I do 30 min. of cardio followed by an hour of heavy lifting. And before anyone says I'm doing it wrong or my lifting is suffering, it's not. I have absolutely no problem lifting heavy after a hard cardio session. I have been doing my workout this way for years and have had no issues with progress and muscle gains. The reason why I do it the way I do is because I know that I will not do cardio when I am done lifting because I am simply too spent. And no, I am not going to "give up cardio" because I actually like doing it.

I do weight training and interval high intensity explosive cardio for "fat" loss. I'll run on a treadmill for an hour to lose "weight". Do you want the body of a marathon runner? or a sprinter?

I do my strength training in timed circuit/strength format, so the workouts themselves are a mix of both. I don't have separate "strength" workouts or "cardio" workouts.

Interesting to hear strength is coming up tops here... mostly I've been told/heard people say that cardio should be the initial focus with a small amount of strength training thrown in for slimming down.

I can't say I have a particular aim re what 'type' of body I want... I'm just trying to get fit and healthy right now. Hopefully weightloss is a side effect of that.

For a general...overall, good level of fitness you want a pretty balanced approach to both. As stated earlier, specific fitness goals will ultimately determine which you should do more of.

I found I was having much better results when I was doing 40 mins of swimming 3 times a week + 2/3 lots of strength.... could it be that this was just because results always come/show quicker initially?

I don't want to cut the cardio out because a) I enjoy it the most and b) I want the ability to be able to run and swim for miles etc etc. I miss feeling like if I decide to go do x or x physical thing that my fitness will be up to it

Nothing wrong with doing endurance training but based on your original post most people are giving you advice on a program optimal for the time you have available. If you enjoy swimming and running then do that. Resistance training does not have to be weights. You can run or swim sprints or add resistance like running hills to get some muscle retention benefits. As long as you are pushing harder every workout you can get great results.

If you are jogging or swimming laps for an hour you will burn some extra calories but might not see the results/time you are looking for.

Strength is only going to increase your cardio ability. Also, you can get cardio benefits from certain types of lifting that are essentially HIIT training.

I'm a fan of 3 days of strength minimum (30min-60min) and 2 days of cardio (max 30min of HIIT or up to an hour of LISS). Very few people have the time/endurance to get better at both strength and cardio at the same time. You burn out fairly quickly or at least one of them will suffer if not both. You can cycle throughout the year which one you focus on or keep spinning your wheels with doing both of them.

I personally spend my winters working on strength/speed lifting heavy 3-4 times a week and doing 2-3 sprint workouts on the treadmill. During the spring/early summer I scale back the volume of each lifting session and work my way back into longer runs, sprints once a week with a long run on the weekend. Then by the middle of summer its racing time so I cut back a little more on the lifting volume and increase running to 3-4 times a week.

Also would like to note that in the past 2 months of running at most 2x's a month and lifting at least 3 days a week because of moving/new work schedule/new training environment I was able to pretty much maintain if not slightly improve my 5k race time.

Do both. Unless you're really limited on time you can still lift 3-4 days a week and do all the endurance training you like.

Personally I enjoy doing 2 days on and 1 day off. On my off day I either do cardio as an active rest or just take a complete rest day. If you really enjoy doing cardio, then try to space out your weight training so you can do one in the morning and one at night, if you decide to pick up some weights. If not, perhaps you can do more circuit training or decrease your rest time between sets. HIITs are always fun too.

My personal suggestion to you is just maintain your current weight and start lifting with light weights. Try to figure out what will irritate your wrist and either avoid them or find ways around them. Just make sure to keep a neutral wrist (knuckles pointing forward/aligned with wrist). You can wrap up your wrist too to try to maintain more stability.

There are a lot of things you can do, if you get creative. A lot of leg work can be done without too much wrist strain. There's even a guy at my gym who only has one hand and is still lifting his *kitten* off haha