Cardio Before or After Weights? (Best for Weight Loss)

If your main goal is weight loss, doing cardio before or after weights will drastically impact your results. It’s a game changer once you start lifting weights and doing your cardio workout in the right order.

Optimizing your workouts to burn more calories, maximize fat loss, and retain muscle will elevate your results to another level. But if you’re doing your cardio and weight training in the wrong order, you’ll be limiting your results and possibly even losing them.

Here you’ll get the full breakdown on doing cardio before or after weights in your workout routine. In my almost 20 years experience as a personal trainer, I’ll show you how to maximize weight loss by optimizing your workout timing.

Cardio or Weights First: Which Boosts Weight Loss Best?

When it comes to fat loss, your body first prioritizes burning stored glycogen for fuel.¹ Glycogen is stored sugars and carbs in your muscles and liver. This glycogen is mostly burned first before your body starts burning fat stores.

Weight training mainly uses glycogen for fuel since it can be quickly broken down to create energy for short bursts of energy.² Glycogen is the ideal energy source since weight training is mostly high-intensity and shorter intervals.

By burning through your glycogen stores first, your body will then be primed for a higher level of fat burning. Lower intensity, longer duration steady state cardio generally uses your fat metabolism.³

Weightlifting uses up your glycogen stores, and then your body is forced to burn even more fat for fuel during cardio. The fat loss will be even higher since cardio typically burns fat for fuel.

Doing weight training first also allows you to have more energy for the strength training. If you do cardio first, then your muscles will be weaker due to the depleted glycogen stores. This worsens your results by reducing muscle gains.⁴

It’s easier to power your way through your cardio exercises than it is to power your way through a strength training workout.

Cardio vs Strength Training for Fat Loss

Now that you know it’s best to do cardio after lifting weights, which one is actually better for fat loss? And how much time should you prioritize with each when working out…

Cardio works better for overall weight loss, but strength training works better for fat loss.

When you just lose weight, you’ll also be losing muscle mass.⁵ But strength training builds muscle and burns fat (but not as much fat as cardio alone).

It’s better to focus on fat loss rather than weight loss. If you lose too much muscle mass, then you’ll also lose toning. This results in your body losing an appealing shape and can make you “skinny fat.”⁶

This is why using only the weight scale to measure your progress is a mistake. You may be building muscle while burning fat, which could show on the scale that you’re not getting any results. It’s best to also measure your girth measurements (inches) and body fat percentage.

Weight training is anabolic (builds muscle), and cardio aerobic exercise is catabolic (breaks down energy stores). Lifting weights can elevate your heart rate but not to the level of cardio exercise (unless you’re doing HIIT).

Drink a low-carb protein shake (or eat a protein-rich meal) after doing this workout. This will prevent muscle breakdown from doing the cardio after strength training.⁷

You’ll have more muscle gains if you only lift weights and do no cardio. But without cardio, you’ll also likely gain fat since you won’t be burning through enough fat stores to create fat loss.

It’s ideal to combine both strength training and cardio in your workouts to get the best of both worlds.

Combining both into your workout routine allows you to build muscle first and then increase fat-burning with cardio afterward. This is because your body has already used its stored glycogen and then has to turn to fat-burning.

Benefits of Combining Cardio and Weight Training

Along with weight loss, combining cardio and weight training can give you many other health benefits. Here’s how doing strength training and following it up with cardio can elevate your results.

Increased Fat Loss

Strength training will build lean and toned muscle mass, while cardio will help to burn fat. Cardio maximizes fat burning during your workout, but strength training builds muscle that can promote continued calorie burning for hours after you finish working out.⁸

Improved Body Composition

Combining cardio and strength training helps you lose fat while building lean muscle mass. This optimizes your body composition (fat to muscle ratio) by reducing fat while gaining lean muscle, giving you a more toned, better-shaped physique.⁹

Elevated Metabolism

Strength training increases muscle mass, which in result increases your metabolism. Muscle is metabolically active and needs energy to maintain itself (resulting in more fat burning).¹⁰

Having more muscle helps to create an overall higher calorie burn in your body. This effect is amplified by cardio which provides immediate fat burning, creating a much faster metabolism.

Greater Weight Loss

Studies have found you’ll get better weight loss results by combining both strength training and cardio exercise than doing just one.¹¹ The synergy between cardio’s calorie-burning capacity and strength training’s muscle-building effects results in more effective fat loss

Should You Do Cardio or Weights First Thing in the Morning

Have you ever wondered why bodybuilders do cardio in the morning?

Bodybuilders know the trick to increase fat loss is to do cardio first thing in the morning. Doing cardio on an empty stomach (fasted cardio) is believed to burn more fat than doing cardio later in the day in a fed state.¹²

Your glycogen levels naturally deplete after an overnight fast, putting your body in a better position to burn more stored fat for fuel. Morning cardio can also boost the “afterburn effect” that makes your body continue to burn fat after you’ve finished the workout session.

So if your main goal is weight loss, then doing cardio in the morning is best.

Mornings are the best time to burn fat with cardio when your body is in a fasted state. Ideally, have a low-carb dinner the night before to make it easier for your body to burn fat stores for fuel.

If possible, plan your intermittent fasting so you do your workout towards the end of your fast. The longer you’ve been in a fasted state then, the more fat-burning you’ll have. So if you’re planning on working out a 6AM in the morning, have your last meal at 6PM the night before so you get 12 hours of fasting in.

If you want to split your workouts during the day, you can do cardio in the morning and weight lifting at night. Your weight lifting workout could be better by doing it later in the day after you’ve replenished glycogen stores. But you’ll probably have greater overall fat loss by first doing weight lifting and following it with cardio.

You can have coffee or caffeine pre-workout for an energy boost. Caffeine increases your metabolism and helps to curb hunger when fasted.¹³ Try adding in C8-MCTs to your morning coffee to kickstart the ketogenic fat burning process.¹⁴

Why 20 Minutes of Cardio After Weights is Enough

So how much cardio should you do after weights to maximize fat loss?

20-40 minutes of post-strength training cardio is the sweet spot to maximize fat loss while keeping the cardio workouts doable for the long run.

But if you’re just starting out, even doing 10 minutes of cardio after resistance training will help. As your endurance increases, you can continue to build your cardiovascular exercise.

HIIT (high intensity cardio) will be the most effective for fat loss. One study found HIIT exercise created a 28.5% more fat loss than traditional steady state cardio.¹⁵

But HIIT is definitely harder than lightly jogging on the treadmill. So, if HIIT is too difficult for you then its best to stick with slower cardio if it’s what you’ll be able to continue doing in the long run.

Zone 2 cardio (60%-70% max heart rate) is the best for maximizing fat burning. At this moderate intensity cardio pace, your body primarily uses fat as its main energy source.¹⁶

This is known as “the fat-burning zone.” The intensity is low enough to use oxygen to break down stored fat for energy, but the moderate intensity allows you to maximize fat loss during the workout.

It’s also easier to keep up with this intensity cardio so you can keep working out for longer (and getting more results).

Summary

• Do Cardio After Weights for Maximum Fat Burn. Strength training depletes glycogen stores, allowing your body to burn more fat during post-lifting cardio.
• Combine Strength and Cardio for Best Results: Strength training builds muscle and boosts metabolism, while cardio maximizes calorie and fat burn. Together, they optimize fat loss and body composition. Be sure to take a protein shake after working out to rebuild muscle, and prevent muscle breakdown.
• 20-40 Minutes of Post-Lifting Cardio is Ideal: If you’re new, start with 10 minutes, then increase to 20-40 minutes of steady-state zone 2 cardio. Try adding in HIIT cardio prior to zone 2 cardio to maximize fat loss.
• Morning Fasted Cardio Can Accelerate Fat Loss: Doing cardio on an empty stomach after an overnight fast tap into fat stores increases the overall fat-burning effect.