Cardio after workout?

[boblive77]

Hi! I am a 20 year old male and I have recently started working out with a personal trainer. I am pretty skinny (150 pounds, 5.3% body fat), so my goal is to become more physically fit and gain muscle.

The first trainer I had always had me do 10 minutes of cardio after the workout (treadmill, stairmaster, etc.)... I have switched to a new trainer and he tells me NOT to do cardio after my workout mainly because I spend most of my day doing some form of cardio (walking from class to class on campus). So, should I or should I not be doing cardio after my workout?

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[zeppelinrocker]

i think you're suppose to do them before.
to get you warmed up i guess.
thats what my ex trainer said but i wasnt too sure.

 

[Phate89]

You want to avoid cardio after lifting because your body would use the muscle tissue as an energy source.

It would sorta negate your weight lifting

 

[benelson101]

Im with Phate, as will most on this forum be.

Split cardio and weights into separate sessions, you can do them on the same day but keep a fair few hours between to allow for recovery. And make sure you're eating enough to fuel what you're doing.

Cardio post weights will help lose weight, but as your gylcogen is going to be severly depleted after resistance work, you body will look for its next fuel source, of which the easiest to find is your lean muscle.

Warm ups are different, just dont burn yourself out too soon.

 

[Wrangell]

Im with Phate, as will most on this forum be.

Split cardio and weights into separate sessions, you can do them on the same day but keep a fair few hours between to allow for recovery. And make sure you're eating enough to fuel what you're doing.

Cardio post weights will help lose weight, but as your gylcogen is going to be severly depleted after resistance work, you body will look for its next fuel source, of which the easiest to find is your lean muscle.

Warm ups are different, just dont burn yourself out too soon.

You will likely only tap into a greater proportion of glycogen stores primarily during your actually works sets in a weight workout....with an equal or greater amount of fat being burned during the mid to latter part of a rest between sets / exercises.

So, given someone of his weight probably has about 1,600 +/- calories of glycogen calories available, I would find it very unlikely the average weight workout of a typical gym rat is going to come anywhere close to severely depleting his glycogen stores - with the result being, lean muscle would be turned to as a source of energy.

And it's even more of a non-issue if his post weight workout cardio session is only 10 minutes long.

 

[Wrangell]

Hi! I am a 20 year old male and I have recently started working out with a personal trainer. I am pretty skinny (150 pounds, 5.3% body fat), so my goal is to become more physically fit and gain muscle.

The first trainer I had always had me do 10 minutes of cardio after the workout (treadmill, stairmaster, etc.)... I have switched to a new trainer and he tells me NOT to do cardio after my workout mainly because I spend most of my day doing some form of cardio (walking from class to class on campus). So, should I or should I not be doing cardio after my workout?

Thanks for the suggestions!

In most cases, doing 10 minutes or cardio BEFORE weight training makes the most sense IMO. The cardio is simply used as an overall ' warm up ' before hitting the weights - at least that's the reason why I've been doing for years now.

As for doing 10 minutes of cardio after weights - if it's only 10 minutes, I suspect it wasn't being suggested for the primary goals of improving cardio fitness significant cardio or for the fat burning benefit. I don't know how hard your weight workouts are, but one possible rationale for a quick 10 minute post weight workout cardio session might be to help remove lactic acid from your muscles ( it's the reason many hockey players will hop on a stationary bike immediately after a game ).

That said, even the amount of lactic acid left in your muscles after a weight workout depends a lot on how intense your workout was. And at that, whether whatever lactic acid does remain would actually contribute to any soreness ( i.e DOMS ) is debatable - at best. I've seldom seen an average gym rat doing 10 minutes of light cardio after weight simply to flush lactic acid.

So, I would opt for 10 minutes of cardio before. But, if you want to do 10 minutes afterwards, that's O.K. too - it won't have any significant adverse impact ( i.e using lean tissue for energy ) on your muscles.

 

[benelson101]

In most cases, doing 10 minutes or cardio BEFORE weight training makes the most sense IMO. The cardio is simply used as an overall ' warm up ' before hitting the weights - at least that's the reason why I've been doing for years now.

Low intensity warm ups such as cardio are poor preparation for intense weight workouts, nothing wrong with doing them but adding in some resistance warm ups instead. Generally, the harder your workout, the harder your warm up should be.

Then why do it? Go outside and breathe in 10 mins of fresh air instead, you'll get more from it.

 

[Wrangell]

Low intensity warm ups such as cardio are poor preparation for intense weight workouts, nothing wrong with doing them but adding in some resistance warm ups instead. Generally, the harder your workout, the harder your warm up should be.

I disagree. I always tell my players to warm up slow and easy at first with a gradual build up to training levels before any hard training session - be it weight or cardio training.

With respect to weights, my approach for them is to start with a ' general ' light warm up - i.e 10 minutes or so of cardio. This is for all the often cited reasons like improving the delivery of oxygen, helping the increase blood flow to the muscles, improving elasticity of tissues etc. etc.

After that, they move top a ' specific ' light warm up - doing warm up sets for each weight exercise with lighter weights before moving into their training weights

Then why do it? Go outside and breathe in 10 mins of fresh air instead, you'll get more from it.

Good question.

You'd have to have him ask his trainer why - it was his trainer's suggestion to do only 10 minutes of post weight training cardio - because doing so certainly isn't an optimal training option to reduce fat or improve cardio fitness IMO.

 

[benelson101]

With respect to weights, my approach for them is to start with a ' general ' light warm up - i.e 10 minutes or so of cardio. This is for all the often cited reasons like improving the delivery of oxygen, helping the increase blood flow to the muscles, improving elasticity of tissues etc. etc.

After that, they move top a ' specific ' light warm up - doing warm up sets for each weight exercise with lighter weights before moving into their training weights

I think we're heading in a more similar direction than we think! Id call this a good, intense way of warming up; im not suggesting go lift a couple of sets of heavy weights, by i suppose thorough would've been a better word than intense.

Although I still maintain you'd get more benefit from doing some high rep, lower weights work than the treadmill pounding. It gets the muscles twitching and psychologically it gets you ready to do some 'real' work. But remember im talking about average Joe who goes to the gym 2-4 times a week, not an athlete.

My football (soccer) team still insist on static stretching, no matter how much I cry and stamp my feet at them.

 

[Wrangell]

I think we're heading in a more similar direction than we think! Id call this a good, intense way of warming up; im not suggesting go lift a couple of sets of heavy weights, by i suppose thorough would've been a better word than intense.

Although I still maintain you'd get more benefit from doing some high rep, lower weights work than the treadmill pounding. It gets the muscles twitching and psychologically it gets you ready to do some 'real' work. But remember im talking about average Joe who goes to the gym 2-4 times a week, not an athlete.

My football (soccer) team still insist on static stretching, no matter how much I cry and stamp my feet at them.

My point was, that you simple do both.

Start with a ' general ' cardio warm-up ( and it needn't be " pounding " btw ) to get your heart rate up, blood flow to muscles etc. etc.

Then, you move to a ' specific ' light weight warm-up - i.e " doing some high rep, lower weights work " - just as you said.

In my view, " you'd get more benefit " from doing BOTH warm-ups, than by simply just doing the latter...that's all I'm saying.

 

[boblive77]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm trying to gain muscle, so I'll stick to a short cardio warm-up before the workout, but no cardio after the workout.