It’s easy to get wrapped up in the order of your daily workout and neglect the bigger picture. While it’s true that workouts should have a bit of planning involved, it’s important to remain focused on your overall goals. For general health, it’s more important that you simply include both cardio and resistance training in your workouts. These can be done on the same day or on separate days.
If your goal is performance, then you should build your workout around your goal. For example, perform cardio first if you’re looking to improve cardiovascular and/or muscular endurance as in marathon training or distance events. If your goal is to build muscle size or strength, then it’s best to do weight training before cardiovascular exercise. Ultimately, you should perform the most important type of exercise for your given goals first while you have the most energy.
I typically do a few minutes of cardio before every workout as it provides a good warmup for most types of exercise. If you choose not to warm up with cardiovascular activity, perform a dynamic warmup such as jumping jacks, carioca, or inline lunges to prepare for the movements to follow.
One caveat to consider when determining the order of your exercise is this; if your goal is muscular size or strength, you will sacrifice some gains in these areas when performing cardio immediately after lifting weights. In this case, it is best to split your workouts over the course of the day or perform cardio and weight training on separate days.
Both cardio and strength training are vital components of a balanced workout routine. Equally important are good nutrition and flexibility training. Incorporate each of these aspects to round out your fitness profile.
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