Cardio... Before Or After Lifting?

[duke of earl]

So if you lift then do cardio - when do you have your PW shake?
Surely you need to have it straight after you finish lifting? But then running etc will be a pain with a fulll stomach & you'll prolly use a load of your PW meal as your energy source - depriving your muscles of nutrients & stopping your body using fat stores?

 

[slat1]

If you have to do both cardio and lifting in the same session; AND assuming your trying to lose fat and/or build muscle, lift before cardio.

Two reasons: Lifting needs to be done with intensity to build muscle. If you burn up your glycogen stores doing cardio, you will not have to energy to lift effectively and you will not grow.

Also, if you lift first, that will deplete your glycogen stores so that you will burn fat during cardio. Studies have shown that you will burn more fat calories AND more total calories by doing resistance training first, then cardio.

I couldn't agree more. If I was more motivated I would do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach!

 

[Mavy]

The only cardio i do BEFORE a workout is strictly for warmup. Some people over do it. YOu only need to run or bike until you first break a sweat. You are warmed up then. This is usually 7-8 mins for me depending what I am doing. Then like Jatca mentioned I warm up my core, no matter what exerices I am doing. Often I will superset, abs/lowerback with whatever warm up exerices for whatever lifts I will be doing. If cutting I will do 30mins of cardio after each training session, and in the am on an empty stomach a few times per week.

Mavy

 

[TheAssholeFomerlyKnownAsDBBT]

I'm a firm beliver in the idea to do cardio last and lifing first. The reason is if you do cardio first then you burn off all your glycogen and leave little to nothing for the lifting portion of your workout. Since I think the lifting is way more important than the cardio, I say cardio last.

dont do them on same day, or split them up at least if you have to do them on same day, never immediately before or after workout though!

 

[mohsan]

Also remember, wait ATLEAST 30-45 minutes after eating to work out to maximize effectiveness. You don't want blood catering to digestion of food you just ate during a work out--instead that blood could be rushing to your muscles. I usually wait 1 or 2 hours.