How to combine cardio and weight training in one day?

Since I still come across the question of how to combine cardio and weight training in one day relatively often, I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a separate article to it. So if you've ever asked it in vain in the past, this article might be something for you. Not only will I try to explain here how to do cardio and weight training as effectively as possible in one day, but I'll also explain the difference between the two activities.

Again, however, I must warn you that there is simply no clear-cut answer to this question. There are so many ways to combine cardio and weight training in one day. They all depend on what your primary goal is. I can't guarantee that after reading this article everything will be 100% but I can guarantee that it will be clearer than ever.

The difference between weight training and cardio

But before I get into how weight training and cardio can actually be combined, it would be a good idea to first explain what the difference between the two activities even is. To this day, I still often encounter the opinion in the gym that if you want to build muscle mass, you mustn't do any cardio that will burn your hard-built muscles. On the other hand, for runners, the relatively common answer to the question of why they don't exercise isis that they simply don't want to gain muscle mass and become heavier and slower. But maybe you are wondering how to gain muscle mass?

But both of these statements are now completely outdated nonsense. In fact, both activities are important for health, vitality, promoting recovery, endurance or building muscle mass. So if your girlfriend or wife forces you to go to the mountains at the weekend or walk all dayyou don't have to worry about losing all your hard-built muscles. Similarly, if your husband or partner forces you to go to the gym, you don't have to worry about not running as well as you used to.

It really doesn't work that way. Cardio really isn't just for burning calories and weight training is for building muscle, it's all just a bit more complicated than that. In short, cardio could be described as an aerobic activity that has a positive effect on our body's circulatory system. So basically, it is an activity that directly stimulates our heart, lungs and blood vessels.

On the other hand, training in the gym could be described as an anaerobic activity, which can have several different meanings depending on how it is performed. Through heavy weights or a high number of repetitions, we cancan lead to increased strength or improved endurance of our muscles. Or through muscle loading, contraction and tearing as much as possible as many muscle fibers as possible can lead to muscle growth.

Either way, both of these activities go hand in hand with our health. That's why we should try to include them both on a regular basis. But how often and how intensively depends on whether our goal is to increase strength and muscle mass or to improve fitness and endurance.

Combining cardio and weight training based on your primary goal

So now we know that regardless of whether our goal is to gain muscle mass or improve endurance orand fitness, both weight training and cardio will likely be needed to maximize results. Of course, I fully realize that the best strategy ever would be to split the two activities into different days.

However, given the chaotic world we are currently in, not everyone can afford that luxury, plain and simple. Whether it's work, school, part-time jobs or kids, everyone has responsibilities to fulfill. That's why many people, including myself, find it much more convenient to get cardio and weight training in one day.

This is where the tricky question comes in, how to actually combine these two activities in one day? Should I do a few miles of intense pedaling on the bike before the gym or should I destroy myself in the gym first and then go for a run, for example? This is what I will try to answer in the following paragraphs.

Since I have found out during my research that dividing this article into cardio chapters atbefore cardio and cardio before cardio is probably not the most ideal path to take. I have decided to take a closer look and explain the subject in chapters divided by your primary goals.

That is, depending on whether your primary goal is gaining muscle mass and improving strength, shedding excess pounds, or endurance and overall fitness. How to combine cardio and weight training in one day ultimately stands and falls on what your primary goal actually is.

1. Gaining muscle mass or improving strength

First, let's take a closer look at the goals closest to my heart, namely, how about combiningm cardio and weight training in one day when we primarily want to gain muscle mass or improve strength. Despite the fact that cardio before weight training is generally not recommended much, I personally don't dismiss it entirely. In fact, even such cardio before working out has its indispensable importance. However, it has one rather significant catch. You simply must not overdo it.

Five to fifteen minutes of cardio before you hit the weights should be enough. I'm not talking about any HIIT or any of that nonsense, though. That kind of cardio before working out is not supposed to exhaust you, not at all. By five to fifteen minutes of cardio, I mean a not-too-strenuous aerobic activity that serves as a warm-up to warm upyour muscles, prepare your body physically and mentally for exercise, and at the same time you may avoid unnecessary and often very unpleasant injuries.

So I wouldn't do any extremely long or demanding cardio before working outm would definitely not be recommended, even if your primary goal is to improve your fitness. This is because you would completely exhaust your body with strenuous cardio before you even get on the weights. With a tired body, depleted glycogen stores and an overstretched nervous system, a subsequent workout in the gym would then be rather counterproductive.

Not only would you not be able to perform the exercises with the required weight and intensity due to exhaustion, but you would also wind upc it is also quite likely that the technique of the exercises would not be ideal. Of course, training with insufficient intensity and poor exercise technique would simply be worthless in terms of muscle growth or strength gains.

Thus, long and exhausting cardio before weight training cannot bring you any benefits. Exhausted body, overloaded nervous system, leaching of catabolic hormones or increased risk of injury are clearly not benefits. Still, I would not avoid cardio before working out.

Not too demanding aerobic activity for a few minutes, serving as a warm-up beforeBefore training in the gym is very useful and an integral part of the actual training with weights. So before you start working out, don't forget to do a good warm-up beforehand. You can bet your muscles and joints will thank you.

So when should you include cardio if your primary goal is to increase muscle mass or strength? You basically have two options, either to incorporate it for ten to twenty minutes immediately after your weight trainingor, if you have the time, do a longer and more challenging cardio on a day when you are not working out.

2. Losing excess fat

For those of you whose primary goal is to shed excess fat, combining weight training and cardio in one day might be the best possible strategy. But this time it won't be about warming up and warming up your muscles, not at all, this time it will be about something completely different. It will be about exposing the body to a reasonably demanding amount of exercise for a long enough period of time.activity for a sufficient amount of time, for which it will then be forced to use practically anything it can as a source of energy.

Of course, I am fully aware that weight training burns far fewer calories than aerobic activities such as cycling or swimming. After all, I have already covered a similar topic in my article Which sports are best for weight loss. However, weight training offers benefits such as muscle mass growth and increased strength in addition to burning calories. Such benefits are crucial for shedding excess fat and shaping your physique. So which combination of weight training and cardio in one day is the best one for losing excess fat?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is still very variable today. For example, in one of the many studies looking at this very issue, a total of three groups of obese men were observed. In one group, the men worked out first and then included cardio. In the other, they did the opposite. And the third did nothing. The results of this study ultimately showed that the greatest loss of excessof excess fat was achieved by the group who did cardio after weight training.

In contrast, another study tried something similar on women. The result? Unlike the previous study, there were no significant differences in excess fat loss in this one. See what I mean by variability?

Unless you have the opportunity to work out and do cardio on two different days, in terms of losing excessI'd ultimately lean towards the strategy of destroying yourself in the gym and then doing cardio. But even this time I don't have long and extremely demanding cardio in mind. Ten to thirty minutes of moderately challenging cardio should be plenty for you. And why am I ultimately leaning towards this strategy?

Besides the fact that you'll be in the gym already changed and ready to exercise, post-workout cardio is the perfect way toEspecially because you've also probably already used up most of your glycogen stores. A body that is so tired and exhausted will be forced to use excess fat stores as an energy source. You may be wondering what to eat before a workout.

Moreover, according to some studies, our body burns the greatest amount of calories after strength training. So for shedding excess fat, this could be an ideal strategy, what do you think? So if your primary goal is to burn excess fat, sleepingI'd incorporate some cardio after the workout rather than before.

3. Improve fitness and endurance

And we come to the third and last goal, based on which we can combine cardio and weight training in one day. This is, of course, improving fitness and endurance. And, in fact, cardio is the only one of the three goals we discuss in this article that is more relevant to it. Or is it?

As you may have gathered from the above, I personally am not a bigm advocate of long and extremely demanding cardio before weight training. In fact, I can't recommend it this time either. Why not, you ask? Simply because cardio lasting longer than thirty minutes would deplete your body so much that a subsequent workout with weights would be worthless.

In that case, you are probably not only close to exhaustionof your glycogen stores, but you're also approaching nervous system fatigue. The idea that after more than half an hour of cardio you should throw yourself on the dumbbells and give it your all is absolutely unimaginable to me.

Your metabolism would already be too tired for any strength exercises or hypertrophy at such a moment. Plus, it's quite likely that your body would have already started producing catabolic hormones. Subsequent training in the gym could thus lead to a higher breakdown of muscle mass.

However, it should be kept in mind that if your primary goal is to improve fitness and endurance, aerobic activities, i.e. cardio, will probably be more important. In this case, you should only consider weight training as a kind of supplement to your aerobic workouts. However, it is still a supplement that is definitely not worth neglecting. Weight training can have a positive effect on the health of your bones, joints and muscles. Which, of course, can help you tremendously in improving your fitness and endurance over time.

When it comes to heart and lung health, cardio is generally recommended over weight training. I definitely wouldn't see it that black and white though. Both of these activities do have a positive impact on the health of the circulatory system, they just go about it a little differently.

Cardio, i.e. aerobic activities like running or swimming, have a direct effect on our body's ability to deliver oxygen to the tissues and use it efficiently. Its positive effect on the state of the circulatory system as such is more than clear.

In contrast, weight training affects the circulatory system in a slightly different way. Thanks to the increase in muscle mass, it gives it more room to store blood, which can reduce the blood pressure on the walls of the arteries. In addition, it also reduces visceral fat levels, which also significantly reduces the risk of heart disease such as heart attack. Thus, both of these activities are visibly important for the health of the circulatory system and you should not overlook either of them.

Conclusion

Bottom line, the answer to the question of how to combine cardio and weight training in one day primarily depends on what your main goal is. So always ask yourself first what you actually want to achieve. Depending on that, then plan your workouts. However, you should always keep one thing in mind.

Whatever your primary goal is, you should regularly, both exercise with weights and also perform cardio. This is because both these activities are extremely important for the health of our body and thus should not be underestimated. Of course, I completely understand that in today's chaotic world, scheduling workouts is quite problematic. That's why, first of all, try to do something.

Always make sure you have a sufficient warm-up and proper technique. Of course you have to train hard so that you can shock and stimulate your body regularly, but at the same time you have to train smart.

And if you are comfortable with a completely different strategy than the one I mentioned in this article, just stick to it and don't listen to me at all. Because these are still just general recommendations that just might not work for everyone. But the point is to keep doing something, do it well, do it smart, do it hard enough, and do it in a way that you enjoy. Only with such an approach will you be able to do sport in the long term. In the end, everyone has to find the strategy that suits them best.

And that's all for now. We hope you enjoyed this article and that it has shed some light on how it is possible to combine cardio and weight training in one day. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask in the comments.

Final tip: How long do you think a gym workout should last?