What’s Best for Fat Loss: Cardio Before Weights or Weights Before Cardio?
When working out with the goal of fat loss, it can help to do a combination of endurance and resistance training – but which should you do first? Get-Fit Guy weighs strength-before-cardio vs. cardio-before-strength.
Ben Greenfield
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What’s Best for Fat Loss: Cardio Before Weights or Weights Before Cardio?
For many years, aerobic, endurance exercises have been known to benefit your health and fitness, because they increase the density of important cardiovascular components (like tiny blood-carrying capillaries) and your cell’s powerhouses mitochondria, assist with healthy cholesterol levels, increase blood vessel flexibility, and help with fat loss.;
But resistance training (aka weight training) has also been recognized as having a significant impact on your cholesterol levels, your strength, your lean body mass, and–just like endurance exercise–an increase in fat loss.
So when you step into a gym with the goal of fat loss, it is clear that it can certainly help to do a combination of endurance and resistance training – but the question is, which should you do first? Strength before cardio, or cardio before strength?
The Study
A recent study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research looked into whether the order of resistance training and endurance exercise during a workout actually affects fat loss. The study, entitled “The Effects of a Combined Resistance Training and Endurance Exercise Program in Inactive College Female Subjects: Does Order Matter?,” looked into just that – investigating the effects of the order of exercise on strength, VO2max, body weight, body fat percentage, and lean body mass over the course of an 8-week exercise program.
During the study, the ladies were randomly assigned to perform resistance training either before endurance training, or after. Their training program consisted of 4 workouts per week, for 8 weeks, with each workout lasting about 1 hour. The endurance component of the workout consisted of 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, at about 70–80% intensity.
For the resistance training part of the workout, the ladies used a 3-way split routine (chest and back, shoulders and arms, and lower body), performing 3 sets of 8–12 repetitions for 5–6 different exercises. The time between endurance training and resistance training was no more than 5 minutes.
The Results
The ResultsSo what happened?
Overall, there were significant improvements in VO2max, strength and lean body mass after the 8 weeks of combined endurance and resistance. But there was no effect based on exercise order. In addition, the only participants who saw changes in body fat percentage were those who made dietary changes and began to eat better!
So in other words, if you’re just getting started in exercise and your goal is fat loss, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether you do strength or cardio first – and no matter which you choose, you simply aren’t going to see results unless you change your diet, too.
When to Do Strength Before Cardio
So how about if you’re an experienced exerciser, and not an “inactive college female subject?” In that case, I’d recommend weight training first. Why?
First, weight training requires a great amount of attention paid to proper biomechanics and form–so if you lift improperly because you’re all tuckered out from that treadmill jaunt 
prior to your weight training, you’ll have an increased risk of injury.
Second, weight training can actually count as cardio! I discussed this in the episode, Does Weight Training Count As Cardio?, in which you found out that if the weight training is of adequate intensity, and is performed in a controlled way that places stress on the muscles (e.g. your heart rate goes up and your muscles are burning), then you get a very similar cardiovascular response and cardiovascular benefit to endurance training.
And then, if you have time, you should also do cardio. As I describe in the episode, Fat Loss: Cardio vs. Weights?, a combination of cardio and weights is ideal for fat loss, because you receive the calorie burning benefits of cardio combined with the metabolic and lean muscle-boosting benefits of weight training.
Mixing it Up
Of course, one important consideration here is the option that we haven’t discussed: mixing strength and cardio together throughout the entire workout. If you can still maintain good form during your weight training exercises, this option would involve doing brief bursts of cardio in between each weight training set, making for a very effective time-saving and metabolism-boosting strategy. This is ultimately an extremely effective fat loss method, and I talk about this approach in the article, What Is the Best Workout for Fat Loss.
A second option–the cardio after strength option–would involve simply finishing your weight training with a few cardio intervals on the rowing machine, treadmill, bike, elliptical, or jump rope, or in the pool. And finally, a third option is to simply do weight training alone, or weight training mixed with cardio intervals on one day, and then easy, endurance cardio on a second day, alternating back and forth as the week progresses.
If you have more questions about whether you should do weights before cardio or cardio before weights for faster fat loss, you can leave your thoughts over at Facebook GetFitGuy.
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.