Cardio And Weights

Cardio and weights: Why choose when you can do both? 

You’ll lose fat but gain muscle.

By combining strength training and cardio, you can get the best of both worlds: fat loss and muscle gain. It’s going to take a little more time to incorporate both, but it’s time well spent if you want less fat and more muscle. You can’t totally rely on the number on the scale to track your weight loss if you’re strength training and incorporating cardio, because muscle has greater density than fat.

You’ll have even better heart health.

People who did a combination of strength training and cardio for 8 weeks had greater improvement in heart disease risk factors than those who did just one or the other. Your heart with thank you for combining both forms of exercise.

Your mental health will improve.

Research has shown that exercise does wonders for improving anxiety and depression. A study found that resistance training helped improve anxiety in both healthy participants and those with a physical or mental illness.

When to do weights before cardio

If you want to burn more calories with less effort do cardio after strength training. Cardio after lifting resulted in a heart rate 12 beats per minute faster than doing cardio alone.

Weights before cardio are also a better strategy if your goal is to build strength. For example, if you’re lifting to train just your lower-body muscles (leg day, anyone?) do weights first.

When to do cardio before weights.

If your goal is to have better endurance for an upcoming race, cardio before weights is the way to go.

What exercise achieves.

Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits. It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity may help bump up the production of your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.