Tag: exercise order

So maybe you’ve just begun a new exercise program, or maybe you’ve been exercising for years. Either way, good for you! It’s so important to our physical and mental well-being! Does your plan consist of cardio? Strength training? Both? Whatever your strategy, you may have wondered about the order of your exercises and whether or not it makes a difference. The answer is. . . It depends.

The question you need to ask yourself is, “What is My Goal?” The bottom line is that you have the most energy and strength at the beginning of your workout, so based on what you want to accomplish, you need to perform the high priority and/or more complex exercises first.

So if your goal is to improve strength and muscle, focus on those activities first. In one study published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, researchers compared the following workouts: only strength training, running then strength training, and cycling then strength training. The exercisers did fewer reps during their strength training exercises if they had just run or cycled vs doing their strength movements first.

And within your strength training workout, you’ll want to complete the exercises that require more strength and energy at the beginning. In most cases this means the more complex moves involving multiple body parts (for example, squats) before single body part moves (like biceps curls).

Now if your goal is to run a marathon, then you would do well to perform your running activity prior to your weight-bearing exercises, when your energy level is at its highest.

If your goal is simply to improve your overrall fitness, then the order doesn’t really matter at all. A recent study published in the journal “Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise” determined that over the course of 24 weeks, participants gained the same increases in both muscle mass and aerobic capacity whether they began their workouts with strength training or cardio.

Here are some guidelines for prioritizing the different aspects of your workout:

• When incorporating both cardio and strength training, start with the one that more closely aligns to your goal, as whichever you do first is probably going to get your best effort and yield the most results
• Alternately, do your cardio and strength training on different days altogether
• Do harder, more technical and/or full body movements before smaller muscle movements
• If you want to show your smaller muscle groups some more love, try working them prior to a cardio workout, or by themselves on a rest day
• Do exercises requiring the most energy first; think burpees before triceps extensions
• If you’re working different body parts on different days, change up the order you complete your sets, as once again, the first exercise is getting your best effort
• Do your core/abs last; many other compound exercises also engage your core, so you don’t want an exhausted midsection when doing your pushups
• Work different body parts on different days (for example, chest, shoulders, biceps, then back, triceps, then legs, abs); by doing this and then alternating exercise order on each day, all body parts get a chance to get the most maximized workout