Do any of you do cardio before you work out?

[7Stryder7]

I hear that you have to do cardio (i.e. jogging, playing basketball, or any type of exercise that increases your heart rate) for a couple of minutes before you start to weight train.
Would there be any short OR long term health risks if one simply skips cardio before they lift weights?
Could stretching my muscles be just as efficient?
What do you guys do before you start lifting weights?

[van]

Nope, I just do some warmup sets with light wieghts before lifting heavy. If you go straight to heavy you could pull a muscle. The point is, you need to warm up your muscles before hand to prevent injury.

[gfong]

Jump on a treadmill for 10 mins or some other equipment like that. It gets your heart working and the blood flowing through your body. Use the advice from the poster above also. Just do something that will get your body warmed up before you start the weights. Good luck

[gman]

Doing cardio is a work out for me. ;)

[mingming]

i usually do some light cardio (10 minutes on bike) to warm up, then go do my weights. then do my hard cardio (30-45 min)

[UrbanPoet]

just do some light weight warm up....
eg. 20lb DB bench presses or start curling them @ high reps.
That way it'll get you warmed up and you hit 2 birds with 1 stone... You get some extra weight training in there (even if it isnt intense).

[7Stryder7]

thanks guyz,
I normally jog for 15 mins or so before working out.
I didn't like doing it though because it eventually got repetitive and boring.
So now, I've decided that I'll simply jog during some work out sessions. However, if I'm running short on time, I'll do some light weights with high reps and then move on to the heavier stuff.

[UrbanPoet]

save cardio for your off days.
That way you can put 100% towards weights when your training, and 100% towards cardio...

That way you keep your weight training intensity high for maximum growth.

[7Stryder7]

save cardio for your off days.
That way you can put 100% towards weights when your training, and 100% towards cardio...

That way you keep your weight training intensity high for maximum growth.

okay, I'll give that a try;
thanks

[Jucius Maximus]

Yep, just got out of the shower after doing treadmill and elliptical machine and then weights.

[konfusion666]

I hear that you have to do cardio (i.e. jogging, playing basketball, or any type of exercise that increases your heart rate) for a couple of minutes before you start to weight train.
Would there be any short OR long term health risks if one simply skips cardio before they lift weights?
Could stretching my muscles be just as efficient?
What do you guys do before you start lifting weights?

10 min. cardio, then weights, then 15-25 min. of cardio. seems to work okay.

[brutal]

10 min. cardio, then weights, then 15-25 min. of cardio. seems to work okay.

Also depends on what your goals are...some want muscle some just want to lose some fat

[mrlooneytoon]

Stretch full body, lift light for specific muscle on that day = 5 mins.
Lift heavy = 40 mins
HIIT cardio = 15 mins.

^ My routine

Someone told me that cardio before resistance training is bad for overall muscle growth. To me a jogging warmup still counts as cardio so I don't do it.

[7Stryder7]

Someone told me that cardio before resistance training is bad for overall muscle growth. To me a jogging warmup still counts as cardio so I don't do it.

oh realli?
that's the thing, i've been doing cardio before weight+resistance training and I wanted to increase my muscle mass.

I'm going to try cardio after working out as you suggested (if i have time).
If not, I'll save cardio for a rest day (as the above post advised).

Thanks RFDers, these are helping a lot.

[azn_dan]

alittle cardio(say 5-10mins) is a good thing, just to warm you up. But as some have said, leaving cardio on seperate days(off days) to lose weight, i too use HIIT.

[van]

that's the thing, i've been doing cardio before weight+resistance training and I wanted to increase my muscle mass.


When you do Cardio, the body has 2 sources of energy to choose from. Glycogen/glucose and/or FAT. When you do resistance training, the body basically has 1 sources of energy to draw from, Glycogen/glucose.

If you do your cardio (not the warm up, but the extensive) before you do resistance training and deplete the glucose before you even start lifting, what happens? The body has to get more glucose, where? It can make it from muscle!

If you do resistance training and then cardio, the resistance training depletes the glycogen before you start the cardio. So what energy system will the cardio mostly use? FAT!

Now it is better if you think of cardio as a way to optimize the cardiorespiratory and other systems of the body than as a "fat burning" method. You can burn far more fat in the 23 hours you are not doing cardio then you can when doing cardio.

One more thing, you are moderately glucose deficient on waking. So there is a VERY SLIGHT advantage to training upon waking if the goal is fat loss.

The body adapts very quickly to cardio, even faster than it does to lifting. For this reason it is important to vary an aspect of your Cardio about every 2-3 weeks, or as needed to maintain the results you are looking for.

[poedua]

When you do Cardio, the body has 2 sources of energy to choose from. Glycogen/glucose and/or FAT.

When you do resistance training, the body basically has 1 sources of energy to draw from, Glycogen/glucose.

Actually, it has 2 to draw from - fat and glycogen.

You just rely more heavily on glycogen - proportionately speaking - than fat during weight training...but .......you rely on both.

If you do your cardio (not the warm up, but the extensive) before you do resistance training and deplete the glucose before you even start lifting, what happens? The body has to get more glucose, where? It can make it from muscle!

I disagree.

Even if you do 30 minutes of moderate to robust cardio before weight training, you still won't come close to depleting your glycogen stores.

If you do resistance training and then cardio, the resistance training depletes the glycogen before you start the cardio. So what energy system will the cardio mostly use? FAT!

It's the primarily the intensity of your cardio that determines how much fat - both proportionately and by volume - you burn, not how much glycogen you have.

And, it is very unlikely an average gym rat is going to put a big dent in their overall glycogen stores after only 45 minutes to 1 hour of strength training.

Now it is better if you think of cardio as a way to optimize the cardiorespiratory and other systems of the body than as a "fat burning" method. You can burn far more fat in the 23 hours you are not doing cardio then you can when doing cardio.

I disagree

All other things being equal, using cardio to burn fat makes a of of sense as a " fat burning method " ......as cardio burns extra calories and burning extra calories translates to eventual fat loss.

In fact, cardio is a great fat loss tool IMO.