What's First? Cardio or Weights

For those people that enjoy weight lifting for toning and to build muscle, adding cardio is needed to burn calories and drop the weight. At least for me anyway. And being of a certain midlife age, I tend to rely on both cardio and weights extensively to try and get my body into shape. Its tough, as you may know!

And for those of us that enjoy both cardio and weights, how do you know what to do first? When you only have X amount of time for your workout, you want it to count as much as possible. So that leads us to this question:

What’s First? Cardio or Weights

From what I can tell, experts are split on the issue whether cardio should be first or weight training. Many fitness experts say cardio should come after the weight training since cardio uses a lot of energy that would tire your muscles making it more difficult to lift heavy. However, if you do your cardio first then that uses your stored carbohydrates which works to enhances fat burning during cardio but could leave you without as much energy to lift properly or have the proper form.

I couldn’t find any research at this point that tells you which best. Here’s another thing. Every person is different and may burn carbohydrates at different rates. So it’s really going to be up to what your fitness goals are to determine what sequence works better for you.

What is Your Goal with Cardio or Weights

Do you need more aerobic endurance to lose that body fat? Then cardio should come first. If you really want to build your muscles and your strength, then you should do strength training first and burn your carbs that way.

Maybe for women it’s easier to do strength training first so that you already burned through all of your energy for building the muscle so that when you get to the cardio you’re going to be burning fat. To me that makes sense and it means that I will probably burn more calories and keep them burning for a while after I finished my workout too.

Another alternative is to do them on different days completely should you have the time. I think the bottom line is whatever your focus is and what you want to develop more should be your goal and become your process.

What’s First? Cardio or Weights – It’s up to you and your overall goals. For me, I think I do better with weights first and cardio after. I have more energy to see it all the way through at this point.