This question has been debated for decades. Should you do cardio first and then strength or strength and then cardio? Does it even matter?

Like many topics in fitness and nutrition, it probably depends on many different things. If possible, I try and avoid this by only doing one workout per day so I can focus my full attention and effort on one thing. But, I know that for many, this many not be an option and then only way to get the recommended amount of each, they must be performed on the same day.

So if you have to do both cardio and strength the same day what should you do?

My first option, again if possible, would be to separate them by a few hours. For example, you can get up in the morning and do one workout and then maybe at lunch or after work, you perform the other. If this is a possible schedule, I would say it may not make a huge difference which you did first. Maybe if you wanted to play around with low intensity fasted cardio, you could do that in the morning and then a higher intensity strength workout in the afternoon after you have fueled up.

Now if you best option is to perform them during the same workout what should we do?

Again there are probably reasons you can discuss for each. My first recommendation would be what is the primary goal of the day or which workout is more important to you. Whatever your answer is, I would say to do that one first.

If I had to make a general recommendation, I would most likely suggest do your strength training first and then your cardio. There are a few reasons I would say this. Strength training typically requires more effort and focus. If things go wrong you can injure yourself. If you did your cardio first, you might be more fatigued and pay less attention to things like form as you workout.

Once you do your strength training you can do moderate to low intensity cardio. This should have minimal impact on interfering with each other.

Recent research might support this as well. A study published in the Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness looked at this exact question. They looked at younger obese men and compared the results when cardio was performed first or is strength was performed first. The workouts were exactly the same, just the order changed.

The important result is that both methods worked. Both got stronger and both lost body fat. So really either seems to be effective.

An interesting result is there was a significant improvement in strength and body composition when strength was performed first. Also, they found that participants that did strength first, took significantly more steps throughout the rest of the day compared to those that did cardio first.

The reason why this is may not be as clear, but they are interesting results.

So the bottom line is both can be effective so if one seems to work best for you, it might be your best option. But there does seem to be some benefit when strength is performed first.

In our workouts, we often program short cardio sessions at the end of the workout  due to these reasons.  We know that many clients might not be able to train many days per week, so this way they still get some cardio work in at the end of each session.

I hope this helps if you find yourself in this situation.