Should You Do Cardio Or Weights First For Weight Loss?
Should you do cardio or weights first for weight loss?
Talk about a question for the ages!1It’s right up there with the building of the pyramids and how J.Lo still has a successful singing career.
Our query lends itself to only a few available answers:
(A) Cardio comes before weights.
(B) Cardio comes after weights.
(C) Weights come before cardio.
(D) Weights come after cardio.
(E) Who really gives a fuck.
With only three options because (C) and (D) are just restatements of (A) and (B) to confuse you, you know what that means, right?2Yup, like this country’s two party political system, I gave you the illusion of choice. However, unlike this country’s two party political system, I was honest about it!
Yup, there’s a thirty-three point three percent chance of you sounding like a genius about which activity comes first. Who wouldn’t like those odds?!?! I know I would! You should, too! So since the odds of being correct are clearly in your favor, go ahead and take a stab at the answer!
…
ROFL!!!
Wait, that’s your answer?!
How theeeeeeeee fuck did you get thaaaaaaaat?!?!
Since you obviously don’t know whether to do cardio before or after weights, allow me to not only provide the proper sequence of activity but also an explanation why cardio or weights should precede the other.
There’s much truth to the idea that it doesn’t matter what order you do cardio and weight training, that you can do either first as long as you consistently get a good workout.
While true, that doesn’t exactly mean that what you’re doing is EFFICIENT.
See, some people don’t just want a good workout. Instead of frequenting the gym for the sole purpose of exercising, these people work out with a purpose. They do what’s known as training. It’s to these people that what’s efficient is of paramount importance.
For the goal of weight loss, which is primarily why someone would even think of putting themselves through the boring torture of cardio, the course of action that’s going to elicit the best results is lifting weights first and wrapping up on the treadmill, StairMaster, stationary bike, whatever other medieval torture device you can think of.
I’m not going to get into all the details of it here because I JUST DON’T WANNA AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME, but muscle has natural fat burning properties. More specifically, it helps elevate your basal metabolic rate (BMR).3Remember, BMR is the amount of calories that your body burns when you’re doing absolutely nothing — like calling in sick from work and binge watching all four exciting seasons of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo to catch up with the series before the next exciting season begins, if it ever does (fingers crossed that the show returns from cancellation, y’all).
Because muscle helps you burn calories faster, building it should be your primary objective when it comes to fat loss, and weight training before cardio allows you to put all your energy and focus into that one task rather than fatiguing your body with cardio beforehand and limiting how hard you can physically or mentally push yourself to lift the loads necessary to promote hypertrophy.4If your goal is muscle growth alone, then you should lift weights and do cardio on separate days or at least 8 or more hours apart, as studies have found that performing cardio immediately after lifting can inhibit hypertrophy (that’s another way of saying “muscle growth”, folks!).
But if you have to do the two activities during the same session, then yeah, you should do weights first and then cardio.
Another reason why you should conduct strength training ahead of cardio is that it helps clear the way for the burning of fat as fuel. How it makes fat burning possible is that when you weight train (or perform any other short burst of intense exercise), the body uses glycogen — i.e. stored sugar from carbohydrates — as its energy source. Only once glycogen stores are depleted does the body resort to burning fat.
Hence, doing cardio prior to weight training with the intent of fat loss is counterproductive because the body can’t tap into its fat stores until its glycogen stores are burned off, and cardio can’t do that as effectively as weight training does. For instance, it takes roughly 30-40 minutes to burn stored glycogen when performing moderate intensity cardio. That means that an hour-long bout of cardio only results in actual fat burning in the last 20-30 minutes.
Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound very economical!
What terrible sins you committed in this or a previous life to warrant your need for atonement via cardio, I don’t know. But that’s why it’s better to weight train first to burn glycogen so all you’re burning is fat throughout the length of cardio that you plan on punishing yourself through.
As for the most effective cardio workout to make your suffering worth it, that’s a topic for another day.5…or right now if you click the link!
Now you have an answer to whether you should do cardio or weights first for weight loss.
But before we part, I should probably tell you that you don’t have to do cardio.
Nope, you don’t have to.
See, there are two types of body fat, the subcutaneous and visceral kind.
Cardio is essential for stripping the former. You know, like when prepping for a contest, modeling photo shoot, Tinder profile pic, or some other special event where it’s necessary to display extreme leanness. Most of the general population isn’t at a level to even concern themselves with that. They just need to get rid of visceral fat, which metabolizes faster and diet alone can strip.
The problem for most is that they won’t fully commit to calorie restriction. So because they don’t have the discipline to watch what and how much they eat AT ALL TIMES, they fall back on doing cardio>, which they hate, in order to help compensate for their lack of self-control and place them in a negative energy balance.
That’s all to say that if you clean up your diet and fully commit to it, then you don’t have to do cardio, at least not for the body that you’re after.
Welp, I’ve done my one good deed for the millennia!
Glossary: cardio, diet, discipline, exercise, gym, hypertrophy, intensity, muscle, results, StairMaster, treadmill, work out, workout