The Best Time To Do Cardio

We hoped that you enjoyed the KB Circuit last week for our featured workout. Since I didn’t get the workout up as fast as I wanted to I am going to leave that workout up for another week along with our newest Free Feature Workout. This week you can try out our Advanced Body Weight Training workout. Even if you are not advanced you can still try this workout and simply modify the exercises to ones that you can perform. For example instead of Spiderman Push Ups do regular or modified push ups.

Click Here To See The Body Weight Workout.

For our members we have added another 50 great exercises. This includes one of my newest favorite push up variations the Grasshopper Push Up. I have also added a new challenge to the Premade Workout Library the TRX 40/40 Challenge.

The Best Time To Do Cardio:

One of the most common cardio questions is, “Should I do my cardio before or after I do my strength training?” I initial response is to perform cardio on opposing days as strength workouts. This way you are not fatigued from which ever your perform first. You usually will not be able to go as hard when you are already tired and will not burn as many calories. I do understand though that many people don’t have the time to workout everyday so they have to combine workouts. If this is the case I would strongly recommend performing your cardio last.

I make this recommendation for two primary reasons. First you want to focus on what your goal is. If your goal is weight loss, you really want to focus on your strength training. As discussed last week strength training should be the foundation of your exercise program, so you want to perform it first. If you are a runner or other endurance athlete you would want to change this and focus more on your endurance training first.

The second reason is that research is showing cardio after strength training increases the bodies ability to burn fat. According to a study from the Sept. 2009 issue of the European Journal of Applied Physiology, when aerobic exercise is performed after high intensity resistance training the body will burn a significant amount more fat than if cardio is just performed alone. And I did say High Intensity Strength training. That means this study looked at performing heavier weight with less reps and lighter loads with higher reps. The heavier weights burned more fat and overall calories than the lighter weights. As I have said a hundred times before don’t believe the lighter weight higher rep myth to losing weight.

Mike Deibler M.S., C.S.C.S.
My Workout Creator