Cardio before or after lifting

Cardio

Cardio

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Training for MMA / BJJ matches: Should I do my strength training before or after my cardio workout?
 
If you're looking to cut, before. If you're looking to put on mass, after.
 
two schools of thought on this. One is, strength training first. You are stronger/fresher and will lift more, hence, get more results. Your cardio later on will tie in with any type of muscular endurance development.
 
I thought you should do cardio after you lift because the body is warmed up and you can burn more even faster.
 
It's dependant upon goals. Cardio before lifting will warm the body up if the intensity is not too high, and you won't be too tired to lift. Lifting before cardio could make you tired enough to halfass your cardio at the end of your workout. Personally I've tried both, and found better fat-burning results from doing cardio first, and better strength results doing cardio last. Since I'm looking to cut, I stick with doing it first.

I think part of the problem that's making this issue so debatable is the fact that people's goals are different and a lot of people don't consider that. I've read a lot of crap discrediting cardio altogether to keep up weight room performance, and a lot of people saying that their weight-training did nothing to slow down their cardio ability, but I find that to be nonsense personally. I know when I was lifting heavier some days I didn't even want to DO cardio, let alone any intense cardio. And you always see big muscular guys in any sport gassing before better-conditioned guys. So for me getting the cardio out of the way and depleting stored glycogen is a good thing, when there's bodyfat that needs to be burned throughout the workout. I say try both, whichever works best for you...stick to it.
 
Yeh I actually read that you shouldn't do cardio on days you do leg workouts. It will tire them out. You know anything about that Kabuki?
 
It never bothers me. I do 6.5 miles first-thing in the morning every day, even leg-days.
 
Oh I see, funny how people have so many stories about things and other people prove them to be false.
 
Well, I had a big argument earlier with a former frequenter of the training forums about this issue. And what we ended up agreeing on is that the most any even Professional-level trainer can do is give you a base-outline of what they did to make it where you want to be (granted they even made it in the first-place and have some credibility). Every trainer does things different, some will tell you cardio before strength training, some will tell you after. But it's all relative. You pick what does your body best and go with that. The routine I've constructed is a little bit of the Pro trainer I'm going to be under pretty soon's input, and a touch of my own because, well, I know my body after years of training. Being that I'm going to be fighting at the lightest weight I've ever been in my adult-life, my goals are a bit different and in experimenting I've found that for me, certain things will get me big fast and certain things will cut me up fast. Which is in-turn, what I relay here for the guys looking for perspectives.
 
I see. The guy who told me to train after was an employee at Max Muscle. He also said not to do cardio on leg days. I know who you are talking about too the frequenter. Coach D is cool I like what he setup for me.
 
Yup, everyone has their own variations of what to do. That's why I said it's all relative to goals.
 
come now! if your a fighter..... Cardio While lifting!

obviously not max effort because that would destroy your joints. but stuff like thrusters to tabbata intervals would be great. your strength endurance is far more important then your absolute strength when fighting.
 
Depends. Goal? Depends on time as well. If you can do your MMA, Cardio and Strength all seperatly, thats better, otherwise whatever done first you will do better at. I say, mix it up everyday.
 
The rule is to do cardio on an empty stomach so the body will burn stored fat. I would say burn the fat and just replace it with solid muscle which is offers more protection from strikes than fat anyway.
 
My routine looks like this: I run 2 miles, lift, then run 1 mile. My thought is I do the warm up and then initial run to get everything started ie. fat burning, endurance conditioning. Then the follow up lift to build strength and muscular endurance, and follow that up with a horrible 1 mile run/job to also build muscular endurance. Then eat after to replenish my body. Fruit, something with meat, and some rice.

Is this a good workout?
 
Generally after, if you can lift after your cardio something is horrible wrong with your cardio routine. After my serious cardio (When I'm training for competition, a fight, or just staying in fight shape) I can hardly do anything after my cardio. One reason doing it after I want to really push myself while training so I can go 120%, where as if you did it before you might subconciously not work as hard.
 
King Kabuki said:
It's dependant upon goals. Cardio before lifting will warm the body up if the intensity is not too high, and you won't be too tired to lift. Lifting before cardio could make you tired enough to halfass your cardio at the end of your workout. Personally I've tried both, and found better fat-burning results from doing cardio first, and better strength results doing cardio last. Since I'm looking to cut, I stick with doing it first.

I think part of the problem that's making this issue so debatable is the fact that people's goals are different and a lot of people don't consider that. I've read a lot of crap discrediting cardio altogether to keep up weight room performance, and a lot of people saying that their weight-training did nothing to slow down their cardio ability, but I find that to be nonsense personally. I know when I was lifting heavier some days I didn't even want to DO cardio, let alone any intense cardio. And you always see big muscular guys in any sport gassing before better-conditioned guys. So for me getting the cardio out of the way and depleting stored glycogen is a good thing, when there's bodyfat that needs to be burned throughout the workout. I say try both, whichever works best for you...stick to it.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything KK said.
 
If you are training for a fight or BJJ tourny. Running 2 miles then one mile at an easy pace will do you little good. What you want is H.I.I.T training (High Intensity Interval Training).

Saves time and you wouldn't believe how it will make your cardio shoot up.

Say you are on the treadmill do full incline at max speed for 30 seconds - a minute (depending on what you can) I mean start off running somewhere around there you might need to hold the handle bars though, but do not start the run while holding them. I mean you want to run 'til your legs just won't go anymore and your cardio won't allow you to go. Hold the bars when you reach this point so you don't fall off it and get injured.

All right do one 1min set full incline, max speed. Turn it off, get off the machine
For 30 seconds do plyrometric jumps, forward lunges, pushups, bicycles, or leg raises.

When the 30 seconds is up get back on and run full incline max speed as long as you can. Get off and for 30 seconds choose one of the exercises you did not do (You can do whatever bodyweight exercise you like, those are just suggestions. However I recommend the plyro jumps and forward lunges. I got in awesome condition using those)

Repeat this for 5 or 6 sets, it is best to do right when you wake up in the morning before eating. Be sure to drink atleast a gallon of water a day. Then later in the day you could lift and do more cardio if you want. I am getting back on this program starting today.

As far as your diet Canned Chicken and Canned Tuna will do wonders. Canned Chicken/Tuna, A Isolate Whey protein shake, boiled spaghetti strands, rice, lettuce, celery, cream of wheat, oatmeal. Do not add sugar in any. For the Canned Chicken/Tuna hotsauce will make it delicious. (If you really have a problem with avoiding sweets you could put a touch of splenda in the cream of wheat. However the best thing would be to tough it out and use the pain to train harder)
 
Now running two or three miles at a reasonable pace will not negatively effect your weight workout, but it will do nothing for your grappling/MMA cardio. However if you like your program you could do what I suggested in the morning (you burn maximum calories doing cardio before eating) then later on in the day you could run two miles for warmup then hit the weights.

Cardio is really my specialty I wouldn't be so willing to give you advice on your weight workout (Sets, Reps, Weight, ect.) since I don't have it down to a science like my cardio workouts. However I'm sure if you aren't sure about it there are a few guys on here with good knowledge of combat effective muscle conditioning
 
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