Which Comes First? Cardio or Strength Exercise for Effective Weight Loss?

Cardio exercise, sometimes called aerobic exercise, is any form of activity that elevates your heart rate to a certain zone for a long period of time. This type of exercise tests your body’s ability to use oxygen during the workout, measured as your VO2 MAX. Cardio training in a zone is one of the most well-known ways to burn fat, but we also know that weight, or strength training, is used to help burn fat as well. So, my question is, should this be paired together? And if so, should it be done before or after your strength training?

Before I answer these questions I first want to explain why strength training is important to incorporate into your weight-loss workouts. Strength training focuses on building lean muscle mass. As we build lean muscle mass, we increase our resting metabolic rate overall (5). What does that mean? It means that we “burn” more energy while at rest and thus more energy throughout the whole day! This is very important to note and understand because as we begin to increase our muscle mass, not only does aerobic activity become easier, but we also increase the amount of fat we are burning when we are not moving (like sleeping) (5).

Simple benefits of cardio exercise for weight loss

We all know that as soon as someone says they want to “lose weight” the first thing that comes out of their mouth is often “I gotta start running again”. Running is just one form of many examples of cardio exercise. Some other examples are, rowing, cycling, stair climber, full body workouts, and more!

Why do we put ourselves through this dreading, sometimes gruelling form of exercise? We do this because of the many health benefits. Some of these include:

• Burns fat

• Improves Sleep (1)

• Increases lung capacity

• Lowers stress levels (2)

• Promotes healthy well-being while decreasing depression and anxiety (3)

• Reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, HBP, and high cholesterol and increases heart strength. (4)

Cardio Exercise Before Strength Training

PRO: When looking at the research talking about cardio exercise before strength training, there are a lot of positive results with increasing your body’s VO2 Max (6). VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise. It is known as one of the best measurements to grade cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance. This is important if the individual exercising is a runner or athlete who is looking to increase cardiovascular performance and increase their endurance during their run or sport.

CON: If you are performing your cardio exercise before your strength workout, you will notice a decrease in performance in your lifts, especially when paired with your leg workouts (7). The result of the residual fatigue from the cardio exercise before strength training reduces the amount of power development within the muscles being worked due to a decrease in tension produced by the muscle during the lift (8). There is also research supporting that there is a decrease in Human Growth Hormone production during strength training if cardio is performed first (9). There is no evidence stating an increase in weight loss if you exercise cardio first.

Cardio Exercise After Strength Training

PRO: Strength Training before cardio exercise is found to help individuals and athletes who are interested in increasing their strength and power output (10). In the elderly and women, there is a notable increase in aerobic power when strength training is completed first because the barrier to aerobic power is the amount of strength a muscle has (11). The most important finding when it comes to cardio exercise after strength training is its importance on your body’s metabolism. The research done by Kang et al, shows that fat oxidation and energy expenditure increased when strength training was performed before a cardio effort, and as the intensity of strength training increased so did the other benefits (12). When looking at hormones, there was an increase in Human Growth Hormone when starting cardio exercise when compared to cardio exercise alone (9).

CON: The only con perceived when completing strength training first is that the cardio effort may be reduced due to fatigue from the strength workout. So if you are looking to increase your cardio goal, this is not the pairing that you should do!

In conclusion, performing cardio exercise before strength training is good for individuals who are looking to increase aerobic power and VO2 Max. There may be a decrease in strength training performance, but this can be avoided with adequate rest between training sessions or working a different muscle group. Performing cardio exercise after strength training is good for individuals looking to increase muscular strength, size and power. It is also beneficial if the individual is looking to increase the metabolic effect, causing a more favourable environment for fat utilization during cardio exercise post-strength training.

If you are looking for help getting to your goals, talk to Dr. Andrew Kinach at Kinach Chiropractic today!

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