It’s an age-old debate: should I do cardio first or after lifting weights? If your aim is to modify your body composition, that is, to lose body fat while striving to gain lean muscle mass, you should perform your cardio after your weights for the following reasons.

Your body will be primed and in the perfect fed state to hit the weights and activate the appropriate muscle fibres to their fullest capacity, in order to elicit repair and development, assuming your diet is on point, particularly your pre-workout meal.

Your body will use the energy stores acquired from your pre-workout food during your weights exercise, and by the time you complete exercising, your body will be spent. This is an ideal time to go on a cardio machine since your body will be most open to utilising stored body fat as an energy source for this activity.

LISS cardio –

Post-workout, Low-Intensity Steady State (LISS) cardio is suggested to keep your heart rate within the ideal fat-burning range of 50-65 percent of your maximal heart rate. The ideal time is between 20 and 45 minutes. If time is a barrier, you may do HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) after your workout, which involves repeating a maximal effort sprint and a rest period.

After using stored glycogen throughout both weight training and cardio, your body will be severely drained after you finish your workout. It is suggested that you take a lean Whey Protein shake soon after your workout to replace these reserves and feed your muscles with nutrients to begin the mending process.