Which comes first?

Add comment June 24th, 2008

New exercisers, if they take up both cardiovascular and strength training workouts on the same days, eventually come to a kind of “chicken or the egg” question.

Which workout should come first?

You can probably find as many different answers as there are fitness experts to express an opinion, because that one has been kicked around for quite some time. People a whole lot smarter than me have written as many research-backed articles that say cardio first as research-based articles that say strength training first.

 The most recent findings, though, are that the answer is really very simple.

Decide what your fitness goal is — such as being a good 10-kilometer runner — and do that workout first.

If your goal is to be a good runner, hitting the weights before hitting the pavement can cause muscle stiffness that inhibits your best training as a runner. If your goal is on the strength training side, running first can make you too tired to lift the kind of weight that will help you make progress.

Choosing what’s most important to you can help you focus on results and help keep you motivated.