Cardio before or after?

From everything I've heard and read, it seems like it's better to warm up, do your weights, and then do your cardio.

I think you want to do your weights while your body still has glycogen and burn through that on weights, then the cardio once your body is starting to turn to your fatty acids for energy.

I don't have a real source for this aside from listening to different interviews on podcasts and hearing this often.
A lot of people are saying it depends on your goal and could be very right.

Separate days for cardio and weights for me, unless the weight area is too peopley, then I'll do elliptical or stationary bike til it thins out.

ozgurvh wrote: »

Cardio reduces your glycogen rapidly so you can do short cardio for warm up than lifting than cardio

This entirely depends on intensity. Moderate/low intensity cardio wouldn't do very much to reduce it even up to an hour.


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I do it after.

My legs would be too tired for squats if I did cardio before.

I usually do cardio after my bodypump session. Either way is fine as long as you're doing it.

I start off with 10-15 cardio to loosen up then weights then a little on the treadmill or cross trainer to cool down.

kaizaku wrote: »

You shouldn't do cardio and weight together. Unless you do weightz in the morning and cardio. In the evening. Since you lose weight whilst doing weights. When you do too much you use your muscles for energy. If you do want to do cardio straight after working out then do 10-15mins max.

That's a no. It takes a lot of work (like up to 2 hours of really high intensity work) to completely deplete glycogen stores. That whole "muscles for energy" when combining weights and cardio the same session is broscience.

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Iknewyouweretrouble wrote: »

hot debate. i was told lift first. but after lifting i couldn't finish my cardio. so i cardio first. when i lift my muscles feel "warmed up" and ready to go. but i have a friend who does cardio last just fine.

I think it depends on your training objectives and/or whether or not you have training objectives or you're basically working out to workout.

If someone is doing a program like strong lifts or something where you're supposed to progressively overload the barbell, one would be ill advised to do a bunch of cardio before hand as it is more likely than not that one would not be able to progress in a linear fashion in the weight room and/or at minimum, the session simply won't be quite as good as it could be...of course this would also depend on the duration and intensity of the cardio work.

Conversely, if one has a specific training objective in regards to their cardiovascular work, it would be ill advised to lift and then go train that aspect afterwards as the training bout would be sub-optimal. For example, if one was training for a marathon or a century ride or something, they would want to optimize their run or ride and that won't happen after a hard lifting session...on the flip side, if one is just wanting to get a bit of cardio in for the sake of doing cardio, it's not really a big deal to go hit it up after a lifting session.

At one point in time, most of my cardio was simply for the sake of doing cardio for my health...I'd usually lift and then go knock out a 5K, but I didn't care about time or performance, I was just doing it to do it. As it is now, I have certain training objectives I want to achieve in both the weight room and on my bike, so I separate those training bouts to maximize my performance in both.

I do about 10mins cardio for warm up, then lift and finish off with around 45mins cardio. I've always preferred it that way.