Cardio is a good choice to improve your overall health and it also helps you in losing weight. Different cardio exercises burn different amounts of calories depending on the type or, more specifically, the zone of cardio you are performing. If you are unaware of the zones, you can check “Different zones of cardio.”
When cutting weight, everyone wants to preserve as much muscle as possible and lose as much fat as possible. One of the best ways to maintain muscle and lose fat while cutting is through weight training.
If you only do cardio, you will likely lose muscle and fat, which is not an optimal approach. So the question is whether cardio or weight lifting will do the job.
If you are somewhat overweight and want to lose weight, you should definitely include some form of cardio in your routine. Weight lifting itself does not burn that many calories compared to cardio exercises. Cardio exercises will increase the amount of calories burned, which will help you to reach your desired weight. However, only doing cardio will not be something I will suggest as you will also lose your precious muscle mass in the process. If you ask me, a mix of cardio and weight training is the ideal way to go.
Contents
Can you do cardio and weightlifting in the same session?
The answer is yes, you can, but there are some key aspects you need to know to avoid becoming counterproductive. I will explain those later in this article.
Before you jump right into it, first identify your goal and measure your current fitness status. If you are an 80-kg moderately fit person and you want to lose as little as 5 to 7 kg, then you can easily do it by adjusting your diet and doing weight training. You do not need to put cardio into your routine. If you like doing it, you can, but it will not be needed.
If the goal weight is more than 10 KG, I suggest you add some form of cardio, especially zone 2 cardio, to your session.
Another factor that dictates whether you require additional cardio is NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). It is basically activities you perform daily that burn a good amount of calories outside of exercising, like walking to your office or grocery store, taking stairs instead of lifts, etc.
If you are active throughout the day, then there is not much need to add additional cardio to your routine. However, in today’s world, most of us are leading a sedentary lifestyle. Most of us do desk jobs, barely walk, and eat a lot of processed foods. Thus, to get fit, cutting down calories and adding cardio to our routine becomes important.
Most of us do not have time to make up for separate cardio sessions, though it will be much better. Adding cardio alongside our weight training becomes our only choice. When you do weight training and cardio in the same session, you should focus on the three key points that I am going to explain:
Always do cardio after weight training
You must always do cardio after your weightlifting session. Doing cardio before weight training will be counterproductive and cause your weight session to suffer.
Just think about doing battle ropes for 30 minutes and then choose to do arm exercises. Would you be able to perform them with total effort?
You will not be able to, as you will lose a good amount of strength by doing battle ropes even before you start training your arms. In weight training, you need to put all the effort into providing your muscles with the stimuli to grow. You will lack stimuli when your muscles are not getting pushed hard. So it is a must that you always include your cardio session after the weight session.
Perform low-intensity cardio exercises
When you do cardio and weight training in the same session, it is wise to perform low-intensity cardio. I recommend zone 2 cardio like moderate-pace walking on the treadmill or moderate-speed cycling.
The reason behind doing low-intensity cardio is to get proper recovery. If you do high-intensity cardio and weight training, a lot of fatigue will be generated. Excess fatigue can disrupt your recovery and increase your cortisol level, which is known as the stress hormone. Excess cortisol can hamper recovery and fat loss.
If you commute by walking or cycling, do not add extra cardio, as it will also hamper recovery.
“I use the metro to commute to my office. The metro is 15 minutes’ walk from my home, and the station where I get down is 20 minutes’ walk from my office. So, between going to the office and coming back home, I walk over an hour each day. Thus, I do not add extra cardio over that.”
Avoid doing too much
Some research has found that doing cardio over a period of time is counterproductive. It generates more fatigue, which makes your next session suffer.
A common tendency is that when people hit a weight loss plateau, they increase the amount of cardio to a great extent, which moves the progress backward.
Our body’s primary function is survival. When you deprive it of food, which most of us do by cutting and increasing our cardio, it signals our body to go into survival mode. If you have done that, you will know that you will feel very tired throughout the day and not move much other than your exercise session. It decreases our NEAT to a great extent. I faced that when I wanted to go below 100 KG but got stuck at 102 KG for some time.
Weight training, along with a moderate level of cardio and a good diet, is the recipe for weight loss; there is no other secret. Avoid doing too much cardio in a session. Do 30 to 60 minutes at max in one session and give your body some rest. If you are a professional athlete, then the variables will be different. Otherwise, keep your cardio session between 30 and 60 minutes.