Is cardio better after or before the lifting session if it has to be done on the same days? I also always take a Finibar before each workout. Please let me know.
Is it in the same block of time or just same day?
I’ll give some examples below, all assuming you just want general “looking jacked” improvements.
If it’s same day, but different times, it doesn’t matter that much. I, and I think a lot of folks, prefer getting the cardio done in the morning and the lifting later. It takes my joints longer to warm up for lifting and having some food in me will improve my performance. On the other hand, I can roll out of bed and get straight into cardio without caring too much.
If it’s the same block of time, you’ll tend to do better getting your cardio in after you lift. You want glycogen in your system for lifting, and not so much the cardio. Lifting depletes glycogen, so doing cardio after does you a favor. You also want your highest performance on the lifting (since our context is just getting jacked), and the cardio is just there to burn calories, improve heart health and recoverability/ endurance.
In the real world, if you’re not doing marathon sessions, I’ve found a ton of success splitting my cardio before and after my lifting. So I’ll do 10-15 minutes of a bike or something, lift, then do the other 10-15 minutes. The duration before my lifting isn’t so long it hurts my performance, and it serves as a warmup, and the period after isn’t so long and daunting that I skip it.
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Thanks!
To be clear, it’s all in the same block. I can’t get to the gym twice per day.
To be more specific:
Mon- walk on treadmill for 20:00 at 3% incline
-12 minutes of HIIT upper/lower body circuit
-30-40 minutes of weight training
Tues- walk on treadmill for 10:00 at 3% incline
-10 minutes of sled conditioning
-45 minutes of leg weight training
Thurs-walk on treadmill for 20:00 at 3% incline
-Heavy deadlifts/rack pulls
-45 minutes of chest and back weight training
Fri-walk on treadmill for 20:00 at 3% incline
-30-40 minutes of weight training
Sat-walk on treadmill for 10:00 at 3% incline
-12 minutes of explosion HIIT weight training
-45 minutes of weight training
Thoughts?
That conditioning looks hard enough that I’d want to do it after my lifting
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It is starting to get hard, but I’ve read numerous things on this site saying the cardio or conditioning after weights will react negative with the MtOR after the weight session and the muscles won’t be as sensitive to grow throughout the day.
It’s not going to be something you’ll notice in any meaningful way.
Ultimately if we want to be the best at something, we will have to specialize to a point of creating glaring weaknesses elsewhere.
So if you wanted to add the maximum amount of muscle possible in the shortest amount, you might have to consider dropping the cardio.
That’s not really the practical case, though. First, because the rest of your life isn’t set up to be perfect for growing muscle so it’s all moot. Second, because you have time. Even if the cardio is slowing your muscle growth, that just extends the amount of time it takes to reach your ultimate limit anyway. This is all so slow, that’s not going to be practically meaningful.
When those articles talk about “interference,” while it is theoretically true at any amount of competing priorities, they’re really talking about extremes in the real world. Like you’re not going to improve your marathon time and your powerlifting total in the same training block.
There’s also the “what’s the other choice” to consider here. You’ve said you have to do your lifting and your conditioning in the same time period. So your two choices are to fatigue yourself for your training or to potentially interfere with mtor signaling (which I’d imagine happens from the competing stimuli, not the order).
You are not doing so much cardio/ conditioning I’d consider it a problem at all. I also don’t really think it matters significantly if you do it first or second; I would just prefer second if your goal is looking good naked.
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Thanks! That all makes sense. I am getting the point where my HIIT at the beginning is starting to make my weight session suffer/too hard. So, to be honest, I’m glad to hear you say doing the cardio/conditioning second after lifting may be best.
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To avoid the interference you can also do the cardio or HIIT for body parts you’re not hitting with weights that day.
Like it’s fine to do Leg cardio after upper body weight lifting. And intervals of upper body moves or upper body sled drags after weights for legs. Or kettlebell swings for explosive intervals after arms-lifting day.
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Thanks, Flats. So, you still suggest doing cardio after weights, right?
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Being that I managed to get AM cardio and late PM cardio in without being at the gym. BTW, my gym didn’t have anywhere to do cardio inside the gym.
I walked around my 2 mile [loop] neighborhood, when I first woke up in the morning and an hour or so after eating dinner (when I was doing cardio twice a day.) If I were only needing once a day I walked around the neighborhood as soon as a woke up in the morning.
This is a no brainer IMO. Who wants to be at the gym doing cardio? It’s too boring looking at the same scenery and the air isn’t fresh.
BTW, I didn’t always do cardio, but if I needed it to compete to rid that last little bit of fat, it did it walking around my neighborhood.
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Yes, that would be great, but I live in an area where it snows 5 months of the year. I really wish I could always be outside too. This is why I usually have to get creative with my cardio instead of being stationary on a treadmill, bike, etc.
I cannot stand excuses.
I did buy a Nordic Track skiing cardio machine that I used on rainy times. I wasn’t my first choice cardio, but it was still cardio.
We didn’t have much science to lead us in the best direction for adding muscle, but it never made sense that weight lifting coupled well with cardio. My weight lifting time and effort was for adding muscle, not loosing fat. I never coupled them in the same window, but separated them as far apart as I could.
This is the attitude that I can work with. Get creative. Find a way and means of doing cardio apart from your weight training window. Buy a stationary bike, another cardio machine, or whatever even if it’s some video cardio crap. Is it impossible to do cardio in the snow. I can’t answer that, but if I were you, I’d find out why it wouldn’t work.
Best wishes that you find a solution, just know that I would. My dad drove into my head, “Can’t never did anything.”
Yeah, after.
I’ve done the “Cardio” or “Energy Systems Work” before, during or after the weights at different times.
Hard stuff like intervals or sled are OK pre-workout if I’m training for strength or performance. I can still get through workouts and make the weights progress. But I gain like Zero mass if I do that stuff before lifting.
Slow cardio pre-workout is fine for strength and performance training, and it seems like it might be OK for mass. I just can’t remember a specific time when I made size gains doing cardio first. But slow cardio post workout, for mass, has worked for me and everyone else plenty of times.
That is an awful lot of work though. I’d expect a little interference no matter when you did it.
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The question I ask people is will they do their cardio after lifting long term? I think it is fairly settled that for the goals we have on T-Nation that cardio after is closer to optimal. However, what isn’t optimal is doing cardio after your lifting for a week, then skipping it every session until next January hits, then doing it after lifting for another week and giving up.
There are people that stick to cardio after lifting. It has just been my experience with my gym buddies that they have all had terrible compliance with iit (this includes me).
Just food for thought. I do mine in the beginning. I always do it regardless of what my goals are. I do less if I am bulking, and more if cutting. While maintaining it fluctuates based on what the mirror says and how my pants are fitting. Right now, I am bulking so it’s walking on the treadmill for 15 minutes at an incline. I am more so doing it for heart health and it seems to get me more ready to lift. I think listening to some high energy music while I walk prepares me.
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Totally agree with you on executing something is much better than planning perfectly. That’s how I’ve landed on the splitting it before and after my lifting, for the most part (and lots of dog walks); it’s just much harder to justify skipping a measly 10 minutes or so at a time
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Thanks! I don’t skip the cardio/conditioning of my workouts. I’ve switched to now doing it after the weights and I’m anxious to see what progress I get from it over time.
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I’ve been doing cardio and conditioning before weights since June with effort based weight format. I’ve become a lot more solid, but I feel the muscle gain has stalled.
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