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Strength Training or Cardio First - Fasted Cardio - How to Break a Weight Loss Plateau

Read Time • 4 Min
  • Category Fitness
  • Membership Free

Overview

We covered multiple topics and common questions in this video - everything from the order of your training types during a workout, to the currently popular topic of fasted cardio. Below is a quick breakdown of additional information of each. While you're here, let us know; do you like our longer vlogs? Do you prefer when we cover multiple or single questions? Speak up, we listen!



Should you do strength training or cardio first during a workout?
The long and short answer; do whichever training style you are most focused on improving first. If you're looking to boost how far and fast you can run or push yourself with cardio, do your cardio before your strength training. If you are trying to improve your strength, muscle tone, and/or gain size, you will want to do your strength session first.

There are currently no/few significant and sound studies that suggest that doing one before the other is better or worse for fat loss, however, the one that you give your full-blown, fresh effort to is the one that will see the most improvements over time. We recommend sometimes mixing things up so that you switch off from how you normally order things, in order to produce well rounded fitness (i.e. strength and good cardiovascular health, with neither being drastically weaker or underdeveloped than the other).

Avoiding or breaking a weight loss plateau
One of the little talked about ways to avoid or break a weight loss plateau is to apply the suggestion above; mix up your training style. If you usually do your cardio first and you've stopped seeing the results you want, try switching it up so that your strength training comes first (if you aren't already including strength training, that may be one of the biggest reasons why you've hit that plateau in the first place). Mix things up, and don't be afraid of a little trial and error with your workout plans; something different works for everyone and sometimes even those slight modifications and variations can make a big difference. Another way to break or avoid a plateau is to step away from your hour long steady state treadmill and/or elliptical sessions and replace them with HIIT workouts (if you haven't already). We have hundreds of free HIIT workout videos to choose from.

Fasted cardio - does fasted cardio work?
A fitness trend that we've been getting a lot of questions about is fasted cardio. While it may be a great way to start off your day, we don't believe that it's the wonder solution that some people make it out to be. For one, the supposed premise is that it's almost exclusively geared towards fat or weight loss (boring!), not fitness or health. Working out with little or no fuel to pull from is the least effective way to become more fit (increasing endurance, strength, speed, etc). Additionally, without any fuel, the workouts are likely to be short (which isn't entirely a bad thing but in some cases, workouts that take up less than 15 minutes are not enough to see results or keep a healthy heart) and because you're working on an empty stomach, you likely wont be able to push yourself as hard. Plus, even if it did work the way people claim, it's a short term solution. You're not boosting your metabolism long term the way you do with a workout where you are well feed and really pushing yourself long enough and hard enough to break down and rebuild muscle. It's not a bad occasional addition to a workout program, but it's also not such a powerful or valid solution that we would recommend it as a sustainable plan.

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