I'm currently skinny fat at 127 lbs and 27% body fat. I only do HIIT 2x per week and just started lifting 3x per week (a beginner routine, compound exercises, focusing on progressive overload). I do go on the elliptical for 10 mins before I lift as I was told this would be beneficial but someone recently told me to do the elliptical after lifting. True? What do you do?
I'll do a light cardio warmup, train, and depending on that day's split (or if I'm in prep), I'll follow up w/ cardio.
But if you're doing standard lifting, don't do all your cardio before the lifting. You need those energy reserves to do the lifting, assuming your intent in lifting is to tear down & build up muscle tissue. Then hit the cardio - where cardio can be any combination of steady state & HIIT. Research I've seen more recently says dont' just do steady state. I'll also attest to the fact that perpetual steady-state cardio can tend to aggravate things such as plantar fasciitis, etc. if you're doing the same thign all the time - like steep angle treadmill. Also I always see people setting the cardio eqpt to some extreme like steep angle treadmill or hi speed stepmill, but then hanging onto & leaning on the machine console -which is sort of a cheat to yourself if you're going to bother doing cardio.
So anyway, cardio after training, unless your training is HIIT / aerobic enough itself that it is "cardio".
Do you feel there's a difference in "steady state" cardio forms? You referred to a treadmill, but I run on the road. When I switched to the road from a treadmill after I started running, I found it much more difficult. Now it's just what I'm used to at this point. I feel like not running at least a mile (around a 10 minute pace) prior to lifting makes it hard for me to get into the lift.
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