Benefits of Being First

When it comes to strength training and cardio, does it matter if you do strength training first or second?

Although the answer to this question depends on your goals, let’s talk about the benefits of strength training first.

 

First of all, if you do your strength training before your cardio session, your anaerobic energy system (which uses mainly carbohydrates as your energy source) will be depleted. That means your body will use its aerobic energy system to burn fat to keep you going.

Also, after a workout, your body continues to burn additional calories for up to 48 hours. This phenomenon is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC. EPOC occurs because your body needs energy to repair your muscles after you’ve challenged them. It occurs at a much higher rate after intense weight training than after low intensity, steady-state cardiovascular training; that’s why it’s important to put as much energy into your lifting sessions as you can. If you do steady-state cardio before your weight lifting session, you won’t have the energy to work as hard as you can during your strength training. A less productive weight training session can impact EPOC; therefore, impacting the amount of calories you burn post workout.

In addition, the “perceived exertion” rates, or how hard your workout feels, is higher when you do cardio before strength training – even if the results you get from both routines are the same. What this means is that that if you do the same routine, but do cardio first, it will feel much harder than if you did the same exact workout by doing the strength portion first.

Finally, if you try maxing out on a strength exercise after an intense cardio session, you may fatigued, both mentally and physically, which could increase the chance of getting injured. Besides needing the mental determination to max out on an exercise after cardio, you will also need the help of assisting muscles to aid the movement. These assisting muscles may have become fatigued from the cardio beforehand. By tiring these stabilizer and assistance muscles before performing heavy strength training, you risk the chance of completing an exercise incorrectly or with improper form, which again, could lead to injury.

So again, whether you should do strength training or cardio first is dependent upon your goals, but these are some benefits of getting your strength session in first!

  Until next time, have fun strength training!