TaviaRS

Having a debate yesterday and opinion seemed to be divided

Weights session followed by 60 minutes cardio or 30 mins cardio, then a weights session followed up by another 30 minutes cardio?

Claudius

I dont see a question there?

milo

ideally do them at completely seperate times, as you're doing different things in each.

but if i had to pick one, i would go with weights first. you do NOT want to deplete your glycogen stores with cardio first and then lift, and similarly, you ideally WANT to have your glycogen stores depleted from the weights for when you do the cardio.

so yes, weights first for sure.

messiah

depends what the aim is - muscle gain or weight loss. Cardio isn't a lot of help in gaining muscle mass.

super_si

5-10min warm up
Stretch off.
Weights an hour.
Maybe 10-15 cardio if i can be arsed

RichWalk

I follow a strict regime Tav, 60 secs of exercise then 21600 sec of drinking...

TaviaRS

Messiah, the aim is to do both ie lose fat but also gain muscle mass. I suppose the ideal would be to do the 2 things (cardio and weights) on alternate days, but if we are talking about a combination regime where the person wants to do both in one session, which would give the better results or is it much of a muchness?

TaviaRS

Rich, that is more my kind of workout

Tiggs

do the weights then the cardio....cardio for 30 mins is not much use for anything but a warm up.

TelBoy

Weights first, Tav. You can't put in a decent lifting session after cardio, not unless you're fannying about on a stationary bike, reading a book and so forth. Do the heavy stuff first. Cardio will restrict potential muscle growth, but not by as much as if you do loads of cardio before attempting weights. Imo.

Claudius

Do the weight training first and the cardiovascular training later.

TaviaRS

Looks like I guessed right then

Have been trying, where possible, to do weights sessions in the morning and then the cardio in the evening, but sometimes I have to combine the 2 and had been doing weights then cardio.

Ta for the advice.

messiah

the weight training should be done first in a routine as you're more likely to injure yourself if your knackered out from cardio. - and always try to work your torso first.

If you're just starting out I'd recommend doing cardio for the first couple of weeks - rowing machine would be excellent to start with, burn lots of calories and you'll be using most of your muscles too so you'll still know done something rather than just working your legs on a bike.

A good routine I found was from aussie that trains triathletes. He reckons you do only one set of reps on each aparatus - try to do 15 at a given weight, if you can manage 15 then move up a weight next time, if you can't manage 10 then move down a weight. Doesn't sound like much but you know if you're doing better or worse than your last visit as you've got a score to compare (take a pen/pad and mark yourself)

TaviaRS

Excellent idea there, I'll give it a go.

Why torso first?

TelBoy

I'd question that too, if you're serious about getting your legs into shape, anyway.

The one-set thing sounds very Mike Mentzer. Fine in theory, not so great when injury strikes. I'd advise extreme caution with regards that approach.

messiah

injury reasons again.

your torso is crucial to you performing exercises correctly, if you can't exercise them properly when everything else has knackered you out you could give yourself bad backs etc.. - start with stuff for your abs, back & lats - them move onto upper body, and do your legs calves last - the bike after that should really finish you off. Finish off a gentle mile on the running machine, just a reasonable walking pace so you're not suffering with lactic acid for 3 days afterwards!

yoza

Depends what your on ?

Mungo

Depends what kind of weights you're doing - what percentage of max are you doing and how many set/reps?

milo

the difference with mentzer is he recommends a single set to failure, or beyond, *after* warming up with a couple of progressively heavy sets (which should not be a struggle), and other methods such as pre-exhaust, to increase intensity.

things to remember about mentzer if you're planning on following his approach:
* he is genetically superior to 99.999% of people who have ever lived
* he was on a lot of juice

so it may not work well for all.

however, on the flip side, he has had a lot of success training others with his methods.

personally i put it down to him taking them from a heavily overtrained state and letting them give their bodies a chance to grow.

i personally get better results with a lot of sets getting progressively heavier, culminating in one set to failure... altho the last few feel heavy however. everyone is different in that respect.

at the end of the day, routine is *almost* insignificant, as long as you're lifting heavy and are progressively loading - after all, every athlete trains *very* differently and yet theres no obvious correlation between type of training routine and success (aside from maybe westside in powerlifting). it is nutrition that matters far more for most people.

milo

you will struggle doing this, given that they are thermodynamically opposite.

to gain muscle mass you need a calorie surplus.

to lose fat you need a calorie deficit.

doing both simultaneously will not yield good results, if any, for any more than a very short amount of time (and even that is assuming you're a newbie).

concentrate on one first (fat loss OR muscle gain), then do the other. cycle them up and you'll find you'll get better results.

with regards to cardio for fat loss - it is not needed if you have diet perfect.. as cardio has been proven to merely use up more calories (it doesnt do anything more clever than that, such as burn bodyfat in a special way, sadly). HOWEVER, it is vital for improved stamina and endurance (so dont assume im telling u not to do it!). but at the end of the day, its all about diet for LOOKING better.. always has been, always will be.

TaviaRS

Thanks guys, some good thoughts/ideas.

Be prepared for more numptie questions in the future