After years of mainly road running for fitness, I've recently joined a gym for the winter months. During this time, I'd really like to maximise my fitness and increase both strength and muscle mass, and am happy with the cardio and strength exercises I've chosen.

The question is, should I separate my cardio and strength training workouts to maximise the effect of each discipline? I was thinking I could do just cardio one day and all my strength exercises the next day... Alternatively, I could do cardio every time I go and follow it with one area of weights (e.g. upper body one day and lower body the next)?? I've been taught that cardio exercise can partially inhibit muscle growth in weight training so I thought maybe it might be useful to separate the two workouts... or is that being too pedantic?

I know many guys choose not to focus on cardio much and a lot of women only want to "tone up" but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to significantly improve both areas.

Many thanks!

i would not recomend doing cardio before your weight training because it will effect your performance. You also dont want to work out for longer than 1 hour at a time so it can be hard to fit your cardio and weight training in the same session. If you want to do both in the same session I would do your cardio at the end. But IMO its best to do them at different times or days.

I did cardio before most of my workouts this summer, I didn't feel that it affected my performance very much.

I remember hearing somewhere that cardio after weight training somehow interferes with the rebuilding process of muscles, thus smaller gains. Which is why I always ran before lifting.

In any case, there's no need to try to fit running and weight training all into one hour. Why would there be something wrong with taking longer than an hour if you're doing two things?

Thanks very much... I was thinking the same thing - why should I not work out for more than an hour? I'm sure my weights routine alone takes more than an hour!

If you work out londer than an hour your body starts to releas cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that makes your body switch its source of fuel from carbs and fat to protein (muscle). This is why unless you are on steriods you really shouldnt want to workout longer than and hour. This is also why you want to eat every two to three hours because your body will go into starvation mode and switch from running on carbs and fat to running on your own muscle. I definately recomend seperating your cardio and lifting but it is better to put your cardio after weights because after you lift your body would have used the carbs in your blood stream and would burn more fat during your cardio but if you workout for too long it will switch again you youll be burning muscle.

You should seperate your workouts to achieve your goal. If your routien takes more than one hour, it might be too much.
If you feel you definitely want to do cardio on the same day, do it after you lift.

Roger that. I think I'm definitely going to separate the two workouts. I find I get a different 'high' from weight training compared to cardio, so I think I'll quite enjoy doing it that way too.

And thanks for the heads up about limiting workouts to an hour - sounds very similar to the diminishing returns you tend to get with doing very long cardio workouts.

Cheers!

Say I go to the gym 4x a week then. (Im asking this as I do weights and im doing a cut now). So 2x a week cardio 2x weights?

I wouldnt lift less than 3 times a week. If really want to lose fat I would try to workout 5 to 6 times a week. Are you only going 4x a week because of a busy schedule? If so I would try HIIT. This form of cardio only takes about 20 minutes. But if you can only workout 4x a week then I would either lift then do your cardio after on two of the sessions and then you would have one session of weights only and one session of cardio only. Or you can lower your rest time while lifting and add in super sets. This will get your heart rate up and youll burn more fat. This kind of turns your lifting session into a lifting / cardio hybrid. Then you could do one session of cardio only. This wont be great for building mass but you should maintain the muscle you have while losing fat. Keep in mind if you want to lose fat the biggest factor is diet.