On the days I do weights (Mon_Wed_Fri) I start out with a 5 or 10 minute warm-up on the treadmill then spend 30 - 40 minutes on weights. After that I spend about 20 minutes doing cardio. (Usually either bike or stair stepper).
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do cardio for 45 minutes to an hour.
This program was set up for me by a trainer and it seems to work well for me.
I, (like a couple other posters here in this thread), have been told the same thing.
I think the reason has to to with blood sugar levels being lowest in the AM (when you first wake up).
If you goal is lean definition, the most effective way to attain/maintain it is doing cardio at the point where the energy burned comes from fat cells - not sugars (energy) in the bloodstream.
Well this is true for the most part on days when you do legs…
If you do squats, or leg press it is important that you do some sort of light cardio at the end of your workout.
I believe that keeps the lactic acid from settling so you are not as sore the next day…
man… I remember the first time I did squats… I honestly could not walk like a normal person for about 2 weeks…
There’s actually a pretty good debate going as to just how good fasted-state cardio is. The concern is that it eats away at muscle before enough fat is oxidized for the body to switch over to fat metabolism.
There’s no real research at this point, so there’s no conclusive result. A lot of people have had success with it, so it can’t be all that bad.
And there’s nothing wrong with doing intervals during a bulking phase to keep your aerobic fitness up and fat gain down.
Mr. Amanita gets really sweaty during his cardio – he uses the stepmill nearly exclusively – but he’ll just change t-shirts if he’s really dripping and doesn’t want to leak all over the weight machines. Personally, if I don’t cardio first, I’ll make up some lazy excuse to skip it, and cardio is more important to my fitness plan than weights.
Kinda off-topic, but… I once saw a germophobic woman at my gym who not only wiped down every machine with disinfectant, but had literally brought her own can of Lysol spray. The fumes caused several people to start coughing. The hilarious part was that she very carefully sprayed and wiped down every square inch of the seat which might touch her fully clothed ass, but ignored the handholds and weight spindles, which everyone who’d used that machine had touched with their germy hands.
I’ve not seen her in the gym since. Maybe she caught a communicable disease from touching something which hadn’t been disinfected. 
When I’m doing both weights and cardio, weights first, then cardio.
Quite frankly, the cardio is going to be the same whether I do it first or last - so many minutes at whatever speed. If I do cardio first, I’m obviously not overtired. If I do weights first, by the time I’ve gotten my headphones, convinced myself that I’m really going to do cardio, and made it to the cardio room, I’m “recovered” enough from my weights session that I’m not overtired and can do the same level of cardio that I would if I was only doing cardio.
However, the weights will change. If I do them first, when I’m fresh, I can lift a certain amount. If I do them after cardio - I’ve got nothing left… I’m tired, I’m worn out, and just don’t have the energy or power to lift the amount I would have lifted had I done weights first. I’m reduced to doing a mere fraction of what I can, and I doubt it’s doing me any good.
Scientifically, you’re supposed to do weights before aerobics, but not necessarily cardio. Warm-ups can be done with light amounts of weight for a few sets or with aerobics. Here’s why:
Weightlifting and cardio use glycogen exclusively. Once you run out of this, you’re pooped.
Aerobics use glycogen before it begins to draw from your body fat levels.
Hence, to use up all of your glycogen on aerobics then to do weights isn’t as beneficial as to do weights first followed by aerobics (for the most effective weight loss - starts by burning fat immediately).
If you guys were referring to aerobics as cardio, case closed. If you actually meant cardio, you should do them on different days for maximum results. If you insist on doing them together, do the most important one first.
As for lactic acid, you can get rid of it by doing light aerobic exercise. Heavy aerobic work will just increase your level of acid. Lactic acid is the reason you can’t move your muscles the next day without whimpering.
You can also get rid of lactic acid by lightly stretching the muscles after each set. Not only does this flush the acid away immediately, but it’s thought to promote hypertrophy by stretching the muscle fascia. This is what I do. Only takes five to ten seconds after every set, well worth it.
Not quite–lactic acid dissipates within a few seconds of the end of exercise. The soreness is actually due to thousands of miniscul tears to the muscles themselves.
Otherwise, yeah, I’d agree with you.
I think it depends on whether your working out just for general fitness or for fitness and bulking up.
I hit the weights pretty hard in order to bulk up. If I did serious cardio first I’d probably lift only a percentage of what I lift to failure.
If you just want to stay in good health then either first probably doesn’t make a difference.
Lactic acid is what causes stiffness/pain upon movement. If you’re experiencing pain from microtrauma… you’re working way too hard.
I do 1-15 minutes on the treadmill first, to get my heartrate up. Then I can go through my weight routine with my heartrate elevated, to increase fatburn throughout the workout. I’ll then jump back on the bike or elliptical machine for another 30 minutes, then stretch and do a couple yoga poses to cool down.
Anal Scurvy, microtears ARE what a little soreness is from. Weight training properly will overstress the muscle just a bit, so that the muscle has to repair and increase it’s strength to deal with the higher demands it’s being given. Lactic acid doesn’t stick around for days, and doesn’t require rest and recovery to dissipate. If it was just lactic acid, 1-3 days rest after a heavy weight training session wouldn’t be necessary. Now if you’re in PAIN from your workout for SEVERAL days, yes, you’ve overstressed your muscles and caused excess injury, which isn’t beneficial to improvement in strength/muscle tone. Listen to ultrafilter- he knows his shit.
Uuh, that’s 10-15 minutes…
Wow, I do mine before. And after. Well, 23 hours after, or 25 hours before. Tuesdays and Thursdays are cardio days. 20 minutes on the stair stepper at an ungodly pace, then either bike, recumbant bike, running, or eliptical for 30 minutes. M-W-F is weight training. The only cardio I do is situps after I stretch. Before everyone piles on and tells me how worthless situps are, I have my reasons. I’m used to them. I actually like them. And it’s a good way to warm up. Plus, I can really feel my abs getting worked on crunches and other lifting if I do situps first, and to me, I love that good burn feel. Some people hate it. But I just couldn’t do both cardio and lifting at the same gym visit. I go hard at whatever I’m concentrating on for that day, if I did both, I think I’d just doing a half ass job at one or both.
I’m sitting here looking at a book titled Optimal Muscle Recovery by Dr. Edmund Burke, which should run you about $15 at Amazon and is well worth checking out.
The section I’m looking at right now details what happens after a workout.
Within the first 30 minutes, your heart rate, respiratory rate, body temperature, and metabolism start to slow down; your blood levels of cortisol, testosterone, and other hormones go back to normal levels; your muscles start to replenish their stores of ATP and creatine phosphate; and your lactic acid levels go back to normal.
Over the course of the next few days, your body works to undo the microtrauma that occurs from the exercise. Depending on how intense it was, this can take anywhere from 24-72 hours (or longer if you actually injured yourself–don’t do that).
There’s a little more to the long-term story, and you can get all the gory details by checking out this article (part 2).
Well, I pulled one of my own tomes and was going to tell you where to stuff it, but it turns out you are right. My apologies.
ultrafilter et al, thanks for the confirmation on the soreness caused by microtrauma. I’ve been mildly arguing with Mr. Amanita over this. Bless his heart, he was concerned that I’m occasionally sore for up to 48 hours after weight training. It’s not serious pain, just soreness, and it rarely lasts beyond that 48 hour mark. I knew it was nothing to be concerned about.
Most of the time I warm up by sitting in the Sauna and stretching for about 10 - 15 mins. If I do any cardio, its after I get done weightlifting and only if I have alot of energy/motivation still. Which happens to be about 3 - 4 times a week for 30 mins at most.
I do really light cardio (usually just the 10 minute walk to the gym) before circuit training, followed by my serious cardio.
Lifting leaves me feeling kind of shakey and hepped up, and I don’t like to stretch when I’m like that. My cardio workout seems to smooth things out–when I get off I’m just plain ol’ beat all over, instead of some muscles being tense and jumpy.
Also, yeah, the sweat thing. I don’t like having to carry a towel around.
I’m glad I’m doing the right thing for weight loss, though it’s purely by accident.
I forgot to mention, it also depends on what your goals are. For me, I mostly exercise so I can be fit for when I’m training in martial arts. During sparring, stamina and endurance is more important than having ultra-large muscles, so I emphasize cardio over weights. In fact, people with really large muscles run out of gas pretty fast in fights, since their muscles need more oxygen than a slightly smaller person whose cardio is in better shape.