Should you have a heart workout before or after strength training?

Should you have a heart workout before or after strength training?

The question I am asking so often and I have seen countless times on the message boards online is whether someone should do cardiovascular exercises before or after the resistance exercise? Before going further, I would clearly state that my position is that everyone should participate in a 5 to 10 minute cardiovascular exercise before any exercise, whether it be a cardiovascular exercise, resistance or flexibility. This is vitally important for several reasons, as the appropriate lightweight cardiovascular exercise will warm up muscles, laces, joints and strings that will be used extensively in the next exercise routine. Warming with the heart also increases the basic temperature slightly, increases the circulation, raises the heart rate slightly and helps prepare the heart for increased workload, as it helps

Now come back to the question whether you should have cardiovascular exercises before or after the resistance workout? There is no single best answer here and instead, you should evaluate your individual fitness goals. If your goal is to increase endurance, endurance or cardiovascular health in general, suggest you do your cardio before you exercise weight and resistance. By doing a cardio first (after your 5 to 10 minute warm-up of course), you can participate in a more intense cardio session, which may include some periods when you are really pushing to the threshold of lactic acid or VO2 at the highest level. You are unlikely to be able to achieve high-density cardiovascular exercises after participating in a weight training session. So, in short, if your goal is to increase cardiovascular fitness levels,

On the other hand, if your goal is to lose fat and weight, the current thinking pattern in the fitness community is to do a cardiovascular exercise after the resistance exercise, you increase the metabolic rate of fat (burning fat as is often referred to as). The theory is that by engaging in an intense resistance exercise, glycogen stores will be depleted in muscle during this exercise. Once the glycogen stock is depleted, the body begins to use fat in the body to obtain energy. This endurance athlete has long known this, but in order to do this usually in endurance training, the athlete should run continuously for about 90 minutes to completely run out of glacogen muscles. So I remain somewhat skeptical that many ordinary people playing sports are pushing themselves to the point of depleting the glycogen during the resistance exercise, especially the drills that are lower

I tend to look this way, if you participate in the cardiovascular and resistance exercise the same day in a sequential fashion, one or the other will be naturally less dense. Again, assess your personal fitness goals before you decide whether to do cardio before or after resistance exercises. If you are trying to build muscle, you want to get as much muscle power as you can for resistance drills, so practicing cardio drills before training weights will have a counter-effect on muscle building goals. If you're looking for endurance or heart health, focus on cardio and do it first. Remember, no matter what you do first, it's important to warm up properly for at least 5 to 10 minutes of cardio (even if it's just a quick walk on the treadmill) to prepare your body

Dr. Chris is the owner of the Prana Chiropractic and Wellness Center in beautiful Fletcher, North Carolina. Dr. Chris has a PhD in spinal column therapy, along with a Master of Arts in Guidance, and a Bachelor of Science in Human Services.