Physical Fitness, Health & Weight ManagementStaying fit and physically healthy is essential! Remember, we aren't subsitutes for your physician! As always, talk to your doctor before following any suggestions or advice!
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to gain muscle and lose fat, cardio is best done after weight training. If do cardio first, you will have relatively little energy left ofr lifting, which will slow your weight training progress.
I loose inches, but it doesn reflect on the scale. When it finally reflects on the scale is all the weight loss in one shot (like 5 lbs.) my weigh loss only reflects the 3rd week of the month. Isn't that weird?
Seriously, this can happen, especially at the start of a new diet and when you are working out with weights (the muscle you are adding weighs more than the fat you are losing). The inches are the key because this is what people see, what drives your dress size, etc.
tackleboxteddybear .. as cdn was saying... it is recommended to warm up with cardio before weight training, but not for longer than 20 minutes. If your goal is to increase muscle mass you should do cardio after weight training.
If you goal is to lose fat and increase muscle.... you should do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach and weight training at a different time.
...is that a very light cardio before, then weights, then heavier cardio after, as has been mentioned here.
What was explained to me is that the muscles themselves store a sort of "quick draw" type of energy in them called glycogen. During exertion, it will draw this energy first. In other words, before it burns fat reserves.
A light cardio, will get you warmed up, but take it easy on it. Weight lift. That will use up your glycogen, but that is OK, you want the most exertion for lifting to create the greatest effect. If you cardio then afterward for 30-45 minutes, your bod will have to go after the deeper reserves to keep up. In other words, it will have to burn fat.
If you cardio off all of your glycogen first, your weight training will be less effective, and you will not have burned as much fat.
On the other hand, a really good weight training prog coupled with a good cardio prog will be great. Think of it as burning fat with a V-8 as oppossed to burning fat with a 4-banger. More muscle mass burns more calories for the same amount of work.
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but this was explained to me by a trainer, and seems to be on the level - and it works for me.
What was explained to me is that the muscles themselves store a sort of "quick draw" type of energy in them called glycogen. During exertion, it will draw this energy first. In other words, before it burns fat reserves.
This is spot on. If you hit the cardio hard, as your first activity, you will deplete your glycogen stores, leaving nothing for your weight training. Worse yet is that your cardio won't do anything for your fat stores, since it will have been fueled by glycogen.
Your best bet is a very light (10 min) warm up -- maybe some brisk walking but nothing very demanding. Then weight train. After the weight training (when all your glycogen stores have been depleted), hit the cardio for real. Then you'll be burning fat.
The caveat: if you want to lose weight, the you must reduce your caloric intake. You cannot burn enough calories through cardio to make this an efficient or reasonable means of weight loss.
Also, hit the weights hard. You should be working while you lift. There is no benefit to many light-weight repetitions. I know we've all been told that light weight/high reps leads to "tone" and that high weight/low reps leads to "bulk" but this is false. Very few of us are genetically programmed to be really big (this goes double for women) and you won't look like the hulk no matter what you do unless you start taking drugs.
As for a scale, it will help you monitor your progress (as will the fit of your clothes). If you are going to a gym, they will have one there.
From my personal experience scales are a pain in the butt. I have been paying too much attention to mine and failed to realized the changes that in my body. It is better if you use the scale at the gym only once a week or every two weeks so you can maintain your sanity.
If you are weight training you may not loose weight at the beginning. Don't let that disappoint you.
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