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  Cardio before or after Weight training?

This is one question that I often get asked when people are new to the gym or generally trying to structure their workout routine.

Not everyone loves the gym or can find the time (so some people say) to follow a weight training plan whether it be to build strength, build muscle or get lean AND add that gruelling or boring cardio session in there as well!

I often see a lot of people in the gym especially those taking part in classes attending high impact cardio workouts such as lets say… combat or attack to then follow that up with a weighted class such as body pump, now I’m not in any way knocking any of the classes as I often attend them and find them fun, but from experience in doing a couple of classes back to back in that order, combat then pump, I found I couldn’t put my all in to my weighted workout because I had just bounced around backwards and forwards kicking and punching for an hour previous clocking up a few hundred calories and using a lot of energy.

Now there’s many ways we can come up with how to plan this, weights and cardio together, at separate times of the day, or mixed up together I.E circuit training.

OPTION 1: Weights & Cardio together even though your main goal for the session is to hit the weights each time following a structured plan lets say either 5-6 day split body part or 4 day split alternating upper body and lower body, its ideal to get the body warmed up, in my opinion I’d do no longer than 10mins, get the heart rate up and the body fired up for its workout, 45mins- 1hour of weight training followed by 20-30mins of either steady pace cardio, or if your really want them results high intensity interval training. Here you have the energy and focus you need to train with the weights correctly and efficiently keeping the heart rate at steady rate during.

OPTION 2: Weights & Cardio separate this if you have time can be great, now a days its all about the fasted cardio, this is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, maybe just a bottle of water to hand, then weight training in the evening following a structured programme again, fasted cardio tends to be a steady paced work out over a longer period of time on average lets say an hour, interval training can be done at a higher intensity but is maybe one to be wary of as your body will use up its stored energy quickly and having not had anything before doing this you could end up feeling bit dizzy/sick if you really have maxed out!

OPTION 3: Mixed weights and cardio (circuits) brilliant for people who don’t have a lot of time on their hands, there’s nothing wrong with this at all, especially if you want to get functionally fit and have fun, or step your fitness levels up for other sports activities. Circuits can be big or small depending on, time, equipment or how hard you want to work and you can plan these in many different ways too, a basic idea of this would be putting some big moments in either weighted or body weight such as squat, push up and a pull up, then adding in some cardio exercises such as skipping, shuttle runs and even burpee’s < everyone’s favourite exercise hahaha you can then count this on time on each station or reps per exercise. And you’ll be done before you know it!

I hope I’ve kept this pretty basic to understand and you can now structure your workouts better through out the week, please keep an eye out for more regular posts on fitness tips/techniques and nutrition advice.

keep striving for results, not perfection!

Pat 🙂