I've been lifting for 2 years now, since i got to college, and i was well overweight when i got here. Now that i've lost most of my bodyfat (24% down to 12%) I'm trying to put on more muscle. The problem is I'm still trying to lose some more of that bodyfat, trying to get down to around 6% or 7% so I'm still doing cardio. I'm just wondering if there is doing cardio before or after my weight routine would help/hurt me in any way. Right now I run 3 miles before i do my weights, if i try and run after i lift i just have no energy. Any help would be great.
MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Cardio before or after lifting??
- Thread starter dce2956
- Start date
AnimalMass
New Member
monsoon said:
yep
No it wont. Thats another BS myth that keeps being perpetrated in the retarded muscle mags.jth99 said:
Regular cardio only increases your metabolism and burns calories for MAYBE as long as 45 minutes afterwards, and usually even less than that.
Bob Smith said:
it does positively affect insulin sensitivity beyond weight lifting alone, and from my own empirical experience it does speed up metabolism a great deal more than 45 minutes. Subjectively about half a day. I dont know studies just how my body feels and looks from different training
Agreed, to some extent.Ronin_ said:
That goes against pretty much all the research. Unless you are doing a different method of cardio rather than the typical 30-60 minutes at 60-75% MHR. Intervals are BY FAR the most effective form of cardio and for increasing metabolism post-cardio.Ronin_ said:
If you want, you can do a search for EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption - a measure of metabolism and calories burned), cardio and intervals. EPOC is very small for regular cardio and very high for intervals.
IMO, the biggest advantage of doing cardio early is that it gets you in the mind set early on to eat right the rest of the day and do all you need to do to achieve your fat loss goals. It is much harder to eat like shit later in the day when you busted your balls at 6AM doing cardio. I am going to start doing cardio early just for this purpose.
This to me is much more important than some 0.54% increase in your metabolism for a few hours.
This to me is much more important than some 0.54% increase in your metabolism for a few hours.
I'll agree with J DUB on this one. I spent a month doing cardio first thing in the morning (...no I don't mean in one go!), I got excellent results very quickly, but I put this down to a number of reasons.
I have also read, training first thing in the AM on an empty stomach speeds your metabolism up and allows your body to burn food more efficiently for the next few hours, and I can honestly say that I did feel, er, thinner and less bloaty for the rest of the day while training like this.
I think I only felt this way, as by the time I had my first meal of the day, I was already starving, so after stuffing back breakfast, and being hungry again within an hour, I guess you believe that you have 'burned off' that meal, and your body needs more calories again, so is gonna have to gnaw away at fat reserves until your next meal.
I also feel thinner and less bloaty after doing cardio (I'm built for weight lifting, not running), so after running I have this pyshcological thing, where I do believe I have miraculously shed all my bodyfat, so therefore think the bullshit myth is true about your metabolism running flat out all morning.
The truth of it is that my results are due to me actually getting off my ass and doing cardio rather than slinging the weights around. If I go to the gym in the evening to do cardio, and I see the guys in there lifting big weights, I'll say fuck the cardio, and go do weights with them. There's no disruptions early in the morning, and if I drag my ass to the gym that early to do cardio, then I'll train my nuts off as there's no way i'm missing out on sleep for a wasted session.
In case anyone wondered what cardio I did that I found effective, I did 4 - 5 session (AM) of 1 hr on the treadmill. Not wanting to lose muscle, I did stay in my 'fat burning zone' (no more than 140 absolute max(except for the interval training bit), BPM), 30 mins speed walking followed by 15 mins interval training, 1 min on (at warp speed), 1 min off (can vary this), followed by 15 mins of walking on a steep incline.
Like I said, my body responded to this probably because of the fact I was actually do cardio and sticking with it for a change.
Lame answer I know, but I reckon it's a balance of people having a structured cardio routine - eg, actually training in the morning and placebo effect.
I have also read, training first thing in the AM on an empty stomach speeds your metabolism up and allows your body to burn food more efficiently for the next few hours, and I can honestly say that I did feel, er, thinner and less bloaty for the rest of the day while training like this.
I think I only felt this way, as by the time I had my first meal of the day, I was already starving, so after stuffing back breakfast, and being hungry again within an hour, I guess you believe that you have 'burned off' that meal, and your body needs more calories again, so is gonna have to gnaw away at fat reserves until your next meal.
I also feel thinner and less bloaty after doing cardio (I'm built for weight lifting, not running), so after running I have this pyshcological thing, where I do believe I have miraculously shed all my bodyfat, so therefore think the bullshit myth is true about your metabolism running flat out all morning.
The truth of it is that my results are due to me actually getting off my ass and doing cardio rather than slinging the weights around. If I go to the gym in the evening to do cardio, and I see the guys in there lifting big weights, I'll say fuck the cardio, and go do weights with them. There's no disruptions early in the morning, and if I drag my ass to the gym that early to do cardio, then I'll train my nuts off as there's no way i'm missing out on sleep for a wasted session.
In case anyone wondered what cardio I did that I found effective, I did 4 - 5 session (AM) of 1 hr on the treadmill. Not wanting to lose muscle, I did stay in my 'fat burning zone' (no more than 140 absolute max(except for the interval training bit), BPM), 30 mins speed walking followed by 15 mins interval training, 1 min on (at warp speed), 1 min off (can vary this), followed by 15 mins of walking on a steep incline.
Like I said, my body responded to this probably because of the fact I was actually do cardio and sticking with it for a change.
Lame answer I know, but I reckon it's a balance of people having a structured cardio routine - eg, actually training in the morning and placebo effect.
A 7min mile is still only going to qualify as "regular" cardio. Rather than doing the 3-4 miles, go to your local running track and sprint the straights and walk/slow job the corners. Repeat for 6-10 sprints. It should take a lot less time than your current program and be a lot more effective.
My school had 400m, so thats what I was thinking of. With 220, you could sprint/jog in half-lap intervals.
bg65
New Member
BS- correct me if I'm wrong
A study was done in the 1970s where researchers found that at varying intensitity levels the body burned different amounts of fat versus blood sugar and at lower intensity more fat is utilized as NRG and at higher intensity more blood sugar is utilized for energy. That is ALL that the study showed. Somehow people took off with the idea that lower intensity burns more fat than high intensity. The big picture however is that a calorie deficit causes fat to be burned. Low intensity cardio, while it utilizes a greater percentage of calories burned from fat, consumes less calories in a given time than higher intensity cardio. The intervals that BS proposed would probably burn as many if not more calories than jogging for twice as long as that interval workout takes.
In addition to the calories burned, the interval training definitely sends your body a different message than low intensity cardio. Although our bodies are incredibly and amazingly complex, think of them in the context of when we lived in caves and had to struggle to survive. If you spend hours a week jogging and doing low intensity cardio you are telling your body that the smaller, slow twitch muscle fibers in your body are very important and that these should be favored in place of the larger fast twitch fibers. Doing HIIT for a shorter amount of time can burn the same amount of calories while still sending your body the message that large muscles are helpful, which would favor the predominance of larger fast twitch muscle. As an extreme example, look at track athletes. Sprinters are always very muscular, but the muscularity of the runners is inversely proportional to the distance that they run. (Just being a little pedantic) The longer the distance they run, the less muscular they are. Frick, I just lost my train of thought. Whatever
A study was done in the 1970s where researchers found that at varying intensitity levels the body burned different amounts of fat versus blood sugar and at lower intensity more fat is utilized as NRG and at higher intensity more blood sugar is utilized for energy. That is ALL that the study showed. Somehow people took off with the idea that lower intensity burns more fat than high intensity. The big picture however is that a calorie deficit causes fat to be burned. Low intensity cardio, while it utilizes a greater percentage of calories burned from fat, consumes less calories in a given time than higher intensity cardio. The intervals that BS proposed would probably burn as many if not more calories than jogging for twice as long as that interval workout takes.
In addition to the calories burned, the interval training definitely sends your body a different message than low intensity cardio. Although our bodies are incredibly and amazingly complex, think of them in the context of when we lived in caves and had to struggle to survive. If you spend hours a week jogging and doing low intensity cardio you are telling your body that the smaller, slow twitch muscle fibers in your body are very important and that these should be favored in place of the larger fast twitch fibers. Doing HIIT for a shorter amount of time can burn the same amount of calories while still sending your body the message that large muscles are helpful, which would favor the predominance of larger fast twitch muscle. As an extreme example, look at track athletes. Sprinters are always very muscular, but the muscularity of the runners is inversely proportional to the distance that they run. (Just being a little pedantic) The longer the distance they run, the less muscular they are. Frick, I just lost my train of thought. Whatever
Last edited:
Valid point bg65, and I totally agree with what you say!
I tend to stick with HIIT in my routine somewhere as although lower intensity cardio burns more calories from stored fats, I personally don't feel like I've worked out. Yeah, I know when it comes to weights and stuff, people sometimes think that if you don't ache for the next 24 hours you haven't trained hard enough, which is crap, but when I do 'Fat burning', I can stay in my zone without breaking a sweat and I like to know I've worked out. I can honestly say that 'Fatburning' doesn't do much for me, but I know other people who can keep bodyfat levels just by maintaining this way. I seem to benefit more from hitting the cardio harder - ie - HIIT
I'm spending this week in the gym working out my 15, 10 and 5 rep maxes so that I can start an HST program next week. As this routine only requires me to hit the gym 3 times a week, I'm going to spend more time doing interval training as this routine allows me a bit more time. I'm positive that I'll benefit more from keeping cardio and weight sessions totally separate, so I will be experimenting to figure out how long I actually need to spend on HIIT.
Does anyone have any recommendations on the frequency and duration of HIIT session, when training on my 'off' days from an HST routine?
Keeping cardio and weights separate is definetly the way forward for me, but I'm not sure what's best with regards to complement my weights
I tend to stick with HIIT in my routine somewhere as although lower intensity cardio burns more calories from stored fats, I personally don't feel like I've worked out. Yeah, I know when it comes to weights and stuff, people sometimes think that if you don't ache for the next 24 hours you haven't trained hard enough, which is crap, but when I do 'Fat burning', I can stay in my zone without breaking a sweat and I like to know I've worked out. I can honestly say that 'Fatburning' doesn't do much for me, but I know other people who can keep bodyfat levels just by maintaining this way. I seem to benefit more from hitting the cardio harder - ie - HIIT
I'm spending this week in the gym working out my 15, 10 and 5 rep maxes so that I can start an HST program next week. As this routine only requires me to hit the gym 3 times a week, I'm going to spend more time doing interval training as this routine allows me a bit more time. I'm positive that I'll benefit more from keeping cardio and weight sessions totally separate, so I will be experimenting to figure out how long I actually need to spend on HIIT.
Does anyone have any recommendations on the frequency and duration of HIIT session, when training on my 'off' days from an HST routine?
Keeping cardio and weights separate is definetly the way forward for me, but I'm not sure what's best with regards to complement my weights
Last edited:
BG, you are correct.
Bod, since the goal of HST is to build muscle, I would limit your interval training to no more than 2x/wk and under 10 intervals each.
Bod, since the goal of HST is to build muscle, I would limit your interval training to no more than 2x/wk and under 10 intervals each.
bg65
New Member
I just remembered this morning, we should be abbreviating high intensity interval trainining as HIIT, not HIT- they are two different things
oops
oops
the only thing im worried about is that on the lifting program im on now id be doing my lower body the day before my off days and i don't wanna really work my legs hard again the next day. that's bad, isnt it? right now im doing upper body tue & fri and lower body/abs wed & sat, and im gonna try some running on thurs & sun. I'll let you guys know when thurs. rolls around how im feelin.
