Cardio Before Or After Weights?
Should you do cardio before or after weights? I see the question very often. The answer depends on what activity is more important to you and a little enzyme called AMP kinase.
What Do You Want To Be Better At?
If your main goal is getting better at endurance activities like cycling, running etc., then that should come first.
If you set your eyes on building muscle mass through lifting weights, then cardio should come afterwards.
If you want both, you do your resistance and endurance training on separate days:
What Are Enzymes?
So what is that little enzyme? Er, what are enzymes actually? Time for a really, really short adventure into the world of biochemistry.
Let’s start with what enzymes are: they are molecules that cause chemical reactions in the cells of the human body. Everyone of us has around 75,000 of them and each fulfills a specific task. You may, for example, have heard of “digestive enzymes”, whose role is to break the food you eat down into its components, so your body can build something new out of them.
AMP kinase then is an enzyme that has the role of a “master switch” that helps regulate what kind of proteins muscles produce after exercise. Once this switch is set to “endurance”, your muscles will go and adapt to better endurance. On the other hand, if it’s set to “strength”, the muscles are more willing to build the kind of proteins that make them bigger and stronger.
As said in the video, once AMP kinase thinks it figured out what you want during a session, that is where your best results for the day will be.
What About Fatigue?
Good question! If you totally exhausted yourself with either cardio or weightlifting, then naturally whatever comes last will suffer. However, even a moderate half hour session of one or the other gets the AMP kinase into action.
Picture courtesy of “puuikibeach“.
16 Comments
I have always done cardio, fasted, first thing in the AM. That’s why I;m a lean fat burning machine 🙂
Sometimes, if I do cardio at the gym, I’ll do half of it, then lift weights for twenty minutes, then the other half. I read that the twenty minute break gives the best overall calorie burn.
You are a beast, J! 😀
Hi Evil !
I have just found your site. It’s awesome.
3 weeks ago i started going to the gym to build some muscles and lose the abdominal fat – i want a six pack:)- i want to lose all body fat.
Normally I start with my weights and after that cardio, about 60-70 min/week. Is that good ? Should i start with cardio, do it like i do now or half/half ?
I’m worried that if a do it after weights i’ll lose some muscles too.
One more question: How much should i run/week to start burning fats ?
Thank you !
Again, awesome work!
Heah Mike, thanks for the praise!
In my opinion you are doing it right, because your main focus is building muscle. If you wanted to get really good at running, you should do it the other way around.
You also don’t have to worry about losing muscle mass. That would take some extreme lengths to happen:
https://evilcyber.com/fitness/does-cardio-burn-muscle/
Also have a look at this article, which summarizes a lot of the stuff about building muscle while losing fat:
https://evilcyber.com/fitness/gain-muscle-and-lose-fat/
Keep going strong! 🙂
Thank you very much !
Keep up the good work !
I do cardio first, but that’s probably because I have to “force” myself to do weights. I wish I liked them more because I do want to be more toned. I must work harder!
What makes you dislike weights so much?
Evil: I run one mile to the gym, lift, then run one mile home. I know there are a lot of other variables, but do you think this would really hinder my ability to gain muscle, because I’m technically doing cardio first? My guess is no, as it’s only a mile before weights.
Heah Corey, no, one mile is next to nothing.
Well jeez, now you got me thinking that my cardio is insufficient! 😉 Two mile run, while not a lot, is still decent cardio, or so I thought!
Hahaha, no worries. I meant “next to nothing” as in “it’s unlikely that 1 mile before the workout will trigger that little kinase sucker”.
The wonders of electronic communication 😀
hy , i have a question:
I want to get really good at parkour , and therefor I need strength and stamina. I know cardio bumps up my stamina (probably) , but in order to get strength i should train with weights. But when i train with weights i get much heavier. And it is bad if I´m to heavy because of my muscles.
So my question :): How can I get more strength with weights but still gain stamina without being very heavy?
It would be awesome if you would reply to me. 🙂 thx
Heah Nikola, yeah, that is the cardinal problem for so many athletes: getting strength without getting heavier 🙂
A bit of size can’t be avoided when getting stronger, but you can try going for low rep sets (5-8). While allowing for more strength, this often takes the focus away from hypertrophy (the growth of muscle tissue).
Ok thanks 😀 , but when I do only 5-8 reps in one set , should I then take heavier weights or less? 🙂
Of course! The last rep of the last set should feel like oh-my-goodness-I-hate-working-out 😀
So its like an IK training. 😀 … ok thank you very much , I would do everything wrong without your help 🙂