Strength or cardio training first when working out? Why?

When it comes to fitness, strength training before aerobic training is a relatively common fitness principle for the following reasons:

1. Ensure that the muscles are able to withstand the load of aerobic exercise: By doing strength training first, you can increase muscle strength and endurance, helping your body to better adapt to the load of aerobic exercise, and avoiding injuries due to insufficient muscle strength.

2. Increase metabolic rate: Strength training can increase muscle mass, and muscle is a higher metabolic rate of tissue, it needs to consume more energy to maintain physiological functions. Therefore, increasing muscle mass through strength training can increase basal metabolic rate, thus accelerating fat burning and helping fat loss. If aerobic exercise is performed before strength training, the body will deplete glycogen first, resulting in the inability to maximize strength during strength training. And by doing strength training first, you can prioritize the depletion of glycogen, thus improving the effect of strength training.

3. Improve the efficiency of fat burning: At the beginning of the exercise, the body mainly mobilizes glycogen to participate in the consumption, the amount of fat involved is very small. Generally in the exercise to reach 30 minutes or so, glycogen is consumed almost, fat participation will reach the maximum. And fitness training, the first strength training can consume the body glycogen, and then aerobic exercise can make the body faster into the fat burning state, improve the speed of weight loss.

In short, in fitness, first strength training and then aerobic training is a more common fitness principle, can help improve the efficiency of fat-burning, enhance muscle strength and endurance, improve the metabolic rate. But the specific order should also be adjusted according to the individual situation and fitness goals, and it is recommended that fitness training be carried out under the guidance of a professional trainer.