While there’s no question you should be doing both cardiovascular training and weight training regardless of order, it can be a bit confusing for someone who just started their fitness journey when it comes to which one you should be doing first. Before we get any further on which one YOU should prioritize let’s take a look at some research.
What The Science Says
Basically, the study we’re referring to, concludes that resistance training performance is worse when cardio or endurance training is done before. They believe this is the case because endurance training leads to higher levels of lactate in the muscle, therefore decreasing performance.
Which One Should YOU Do?
The answer to this question simply comes down to what your goals are. If you’re training for strength and hypertrophy(muscle growth), then you would be much better off lifting weights first. If you’re training for endurance, do your endurance training first. Simple.
One More Thing
Before we conclude, I wanted to mention that when done far enough from each other(at least 4 hours), it can be completely fine to do resistance training after cardio even if you’re mainly training for strength and hypertrophy. So if you were to do cardio at 8 in the morning and lift at 1 in the afternoon, it would be totally fine.
So whether or not you should do cardio or resistance training first, solely comes down to your personal goals in the gym.