Should You Do Cardio Exercise Before or After Strength Training?
A question that I am often asked and one that I have seen countless times on message boards across the Internet is whether a person should do cardiovascular exercise before or after a resistance training workout. Before going any further, I want to clearly state that it is my position that everyone should engage in a cardiovascular exercise of their choice for 5 to 10 minutes before any workout, be it a cardiovascular, resistance, or flexibility workout. is vitally important for several reasons as a proper, light-intensity cardiovascular exercise will warm up the muscles, ligaments, joints, and tendons used more intensely in the following workout routine. Warming up with cardio also increases the core temperature circulation, slightly elevates the heart rate, and helps to prepare the heart for an increased workload, it helps lung functioning and you to urine. The advantage of warming up with light-intensity cardio is the substantial decrease in the risk of injury. If the body is not warmed up, you experience an injury to a muscle, joint, ligament, or tendon.
Now back to whether you should before or after a resistance workout. There is no single best answer here, evaluate your fitness goals. If your goal is to increase endurance, stamina, or overall cardiovascular health, I suggest doing your cardio workout before weight and resistance training. By doing the cardio workout first (after your 5 to 10-minute warm-up course), you can engage in a more intense cardio session, which might include some intervals in which you push up to your lactic acid threshold or VO2 max level. It is much less likely that you would be able to achieve high-intensity cardiovascular work after you have engaged in a weight training session. So, if your goal is to increase cardiovascular fitness levels, you should perform cardio workouts before resistance training.
On the other hand, if your goal is fat and weight loss, a current mode of thinking in the fitness community is by doing a cardiovascular workout after a resistance workout, you increase the rate of fat metabolism (fat burn as it is often referred to as). The theory is that by engaging in an intense resistance workout, you will deplete the glycogen stored in the muscles during this workout. Once the glycogen is stored, the body begins to utilize fats fuel. Endurance athletes have long known this, yet typically for this to occur in endurance training, an athlete has, Therefore, I remain somewhat skeptical that many average people working out are pushing themselves to the point of glycogen depletion during their resistance workout, particularly workouts of less than an hour does it is possible and can be an effective means of decreasing body fat for these individuals.
I tend to look at it like this, if you are engaging in a cardiovascular and resistance workout on the same day back-to-back, one or the other will be. Again, evaluate your personal fitness goals before deciding whether to do your cardio workouts before or after resistance training. If you are trying to build muscle, you want to have as much muscle strength as you can available for your resistance before weight training would be counterproductive to your muscle-building goals. If you are looking to gain endurance or heart health, place your focus on the cardio workouts and do them first. Remember, This debate won't mean a thing if you get injured 5 minutes into it and are sidelined for weeks rehabilitating an injury!
Dr. Chris holds a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, along with a Master of Arts Degree and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Human Services. Dr. Chris has published dozens of health and wellness articles over the years and continues to operate a successful blog at http://pranachiro.blogspot.com health tips, articles, special offers, and lots of love, please sign up for PCWC's Newsletter at http://www.pranachiro.com You can also find Dr. Chris on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pranachiro/
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Dr._Christopher_C_Weaver,_D.C/1480880
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9973132