I have a long standing “issue” with my wife. She thinks it’s better to do cardio before lifting weights, and I think lifting weights then doing cardio is the way to go. What are your opinions on this matter? Do I make a good point? Or is my wife in the right? Is there scientific data for this or against?
It can go either way depending on your goals. As a general rule, you should do the most important thing first.
Ok, I want to loose weight from 225 back to 200 maybe 190, and gain some of my pre-30 physique back. i.e. tones muscles, no rubber around the waist.
You’re looking for fat loss (not weight loss). The most important thing to do is to get your diet in order; see here for pretty specific instructions on how to do that. After that, you need to focus on lifting, as that’s going to have a much greater effect on your metabolism than any cardio. See here for a few effective approaches.
According to what I’ve been seeing on t.v. , you need to drink Diet Pepsi™ to achieve these goals. 
On the two occasions that I had workout plans prepared for me by trainers at the gyms I joined, they put the cardio at the beginning of the routine, followed by weight training. I didn’t question their reasons for doing so, but I found that this worked well for me. On the few occasions that I reversed the order, I didn’t feel as well warmed-up and energized as I did with the cardio first.
My goals at the time were weight-loss, improved upper body strength, and just general fitness. I’m a woman, if it makes any difference.
I’ve always done lifting first, because I always feel “rubber-legged” after cardio, and want to have my strength for the lifting.
The trainer I worked with had me do 5-10 minutes of light cardio just to warm up, and then do my strength training. After that I would do as much more cardio as I felt like, usually 20 minutes.
Ditto to this. And my goals are the same as the OP’s – i.e., Fat Loss and getting into shape.
I have read a lot about cardio vs. weightlifting and there is a lot of contradictory info out there. I believe that heavy cardio and weightlifting are largely incompatible. Cardio steals energy from weightlifting and uses parts of the muscle for fuel. Also it is hard to lose weight and build muscle at the same time. One approach is to lose some weight, then switch to building muscle.
I still do cardio and weightlifting, but usually not on the same day. When I weight lift I do about 10 to 15 minutes of light cardio first to warm up the muscles, but not so much that I start to get tired. I also do a light set of weights before doing what I am working with. When I do cardio I do the equivalant of sprints were I bring my heart rate up with close to 100% effort, and then let it drop back with about 60% effort. I have read that this is better conditioning for your heart and better for burning calories than steady effort.
My wife and I have been going to the gym about 4 or 5 times a week for 5 years or more. We still have some loose pounds (which are always the result of eating too much) but are fairly pleased with our progress.
I switch off the order every few months. If you’re doing both consistently, I don’t think it will matter much in the long run.
I pretty much agree with this. I work out during my lunch hours, which means I have about 30 minutes of quality work out time*. I do only strength training (with a small warm-up, of course) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I do only cardio (running or the elliptical when I’m sick of running) on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and one weekend day).
This way, I always have a day of rest for my muscles after strength training but also give cardio and weight lifting the most time I can. Even when I did do both in the same workout, though, I’d do the lifting before cardio. It was more important for me to build strength and muscle (which helps with fat loss) than to get a little bit more out of my cardio.
I’m a chick, too.**
*[sub]The negative of this is that I don’t have longer workouts at the moment, but the BIG BIG BIG plus for me is that I go 5 days a week consistently, which is more important to me right now.[/sub]
** So I don’t worry about “bulking up”, lacking the testosterone to do that. I lift as much as I can for each set (various reps with correspondingly lighter/heavier weights) and I can see me growing smaller. Yay!
I’ve always heard weights before cardio - if you must do them both in the same session. (This doesn’t include warming up muscles before lifting.)
Cardio first has a much more negative effect on the amount of weights that you can lift than weight first has on the amount of cardio you can do.
Personally I go with the “cardio on a different day than lifting”. At least regarding lower body lifting. Sometimes I’ll do cardio on an upper body day. Warming up for a few minutes before lifting, or stretching your legs for a few minutes after is one thing.
But full-on 30-60 minute huffing-like-a-freight-train-hacking-up-a-lung-beet-red-faced cardio (which imho is the MOST effective type of cardio, at least for fat burning) on the same day? Nuh uh, you’re working against yourself, destroying the muscle building process before it can begin properly.
At least according to Bill Phillips, and others in the industry. They say this is akin to rebuilding a brick building after an earthquake and then having several tremors hit before the building is repaired.
I jog 4 times a week, lift weights twice a week, and I lift heavy, to build and maintain thick muscle. Sunday mornings, my workout buddy and I meet at a local park and jog 20 minutes, then head to my house to lift. Does not seem to have a negative effect, but we’re only doing 20 minutes, at somewhere between 8.5- to 9-minute miles, so we’re definitely not killing ourselves with the cardio.
I would not run 5 miles, for example, then lift and expect to have a terrific workout. If you want to lift heavy, to build muscle, easy on the cardio before you lift.
My trainer’s plan, except it wasn’t “as much cardio as I felt like” but a minimum of 20 minutes, more if I wanted.
My trainer’s mantra is cardio 5 times per week, weightlifting 3 times per week, ALWAYS do cardio BEFORE weightlifting (though it’s okay to take a break between them), and ALWAYS stretching after weightlifting (preferably after cardio but most definitely after weightlifting). Most of the fitness books I’ve read echo this. If the cardio is leg intensive (ellipticals, jogging, etc.) then it’s best to do legs on a cardio free day, but upper body (according to my trainer and the readings I’ve done) can be done immediately following a cardio if you wish.
Just my experience, but on the rare occasions where I did a lengthy and intense cardio workout just before lifting, my lifting was definitely affected unfavorably. As I mentioned earlier, my lifting regimen is designed to build thick muscle–as opposed to a regimen to tone–so that may be the difference.
Last year, when I worked up to getting a flat-bench single at 400, I stopped doing ALL cardio (and ate like a hog). It was an ego-driven, vanity objective, and not a smart long-term regimen, but it taught me something. If you want to lift heavy weights, there is nothing more important than how much “gas in the tank” you have–how heavy you are, the state of recovery your muscles are in, how much energy you’ve recently used, how long ago did you eat, what did you eat. However, if your lifting regimen is less “lift as heavy as you can” and more rep-focused, I could see it not making a tremendous difference.
So, I don’t know how running intensely wouldn’t have an effect, at least as you approach your max weights. How could it not?
Sampiro, what is your trainer’s rationale? Does he believe the cardio workout is unfavorably affected if lifting comes first? Is the “cardio first” intense or is it primarily designed to get the muscles warmed up? Just curious.
This morning I did 15 minites of jogging then a weight series. I feel like I’m going to collapse. 
I asked a trainer today and she said either do a light cardio then a normal weights session or switch days you do either one. I want to build some muscle tone, I have the muscle mass, but the tone is lacking in the places I want it. You see in my 20’s I was a big guy, very muscular. I was a heavy lifter, not a tonal one. So when I got lax in my late 20’s early 30’s I gained fat around my waist, and over my pecks. I want my % body fat to go down, my muscle mass to stay relatively the same, increasing the tone.
Phlosphr, you realize you can’t spot reduce where you’ve gained fat via lifting weights, correct? Just checking.