Should You Do Cardio and Weightlifting (How Much of Each?)

Should you do cardio or weightlifting—or both? It really depends on what your particular goals are, and what you're looking to get out of it. So let's talk about.

Should You Do Cardio And Weightlifting?

Should you lift weights or do cardio? What about a combination of the two? It's going to depend on what your primary goal is. If you're looking to build muscle and change your body composition, you should absolutely be paying attention to lifting weights. And doing it in a smart structured way—following a progressive program that you can stick to for a long period of time, and that you're actually progressing week to week.

But you don't want to just forget about cardio, even if building muscle is your main goal. Because when you're lifting weights, if your cardiovascular system is in better health, you're going to be able to lift heavier weights. And when I say that, I mean, if you're doing a set of 10 squats, and you're dead on the floor after doing those squats, that's going to be because your cardiovascular system is a little bit limited.

If you kept up with your cardiovascular health and you did some cardio with other energy systems like you were doing some sprints or just working a little bit more in the lower intensity systems. Doing some just treadmill walking or cycling, that in itself is going to boost your cardiovascular health and allow you to actually lift heavier weights, because you're going to be able to last longer during that workout, right.

You're not going to be like dead on the floor huffing and puffing after a set of squats, because your cardiovascular system is in good shape. So that's you know where that comes into play in terms of cardio being important, even if your main goal is to build muscle. You want to think about that you want to think about training in the different energy systems.

Work the Anaerobic System

When you're lifting weights, you're primarily going to be working in the anaerobic system. And we have different energy systems in our body, the two main ones are aerobic, and anaerobic or aerobic is just means that you're utilizing more oxygen. And so that's going to be more of like your lower intensity activities, more of the endurance, you know, walking, jogging, cycling type of things, and then your anaerobic system is just means without oxygen.

That's going to be the system where you're doing more high intensity work, you know, lifting weights, doing sprints on the treadmill, doing more high intensity interval training. If you can work in those energy systems, and you know, get a good balance with those, you're going to be able to effectively do more, especially when it comes to lifting weights, you're going to feel better overall, you're gonna be able to lift heavier weights because you're not going to be limited by your cardiovascular system.

If your main goal is to lift weights and build muscle, make sure that you are still paying attention to cardio—make sure that you're at least doing some cardio or conditioning activities throughout the week, and pairing that with your lifting.

The only thing I will say here, though, is that you want to make sure that you're not doing too much. You don't want too much extra sprinting or extra cardio, because that is going to impair your recovery. And that's not going to be a good idea if your main goal is to build muscle because you want to make sure you're going into your lifting sessions with you enough recovery.

On the opposite side of things, if your main goal is to run a marathon or do a triathlon, that is a very specific sport. That's this kind of concept we know of specificity, if you have a particular goal, then you should probably be doing more of what that goal is. If your goal is to run a marathon or get better at running, then you're probably gonna have to do that. And that's going to be more endurance-based or cardio-based. That's probably going to be the majority of your training.

You also don't want to forget about lifting weights, though. You want to make sure that you are still building muscle, because that's going to in turn, make sure that you're getting stronger and allowing you to feel better when you're training.

For me, I did triathlons in college, and I had my best races when I actually paid attention to getting at least two days in of lifting. I paid attention to actually building muscle and getting stronger because when you're stronger, you just feel better overall, and you're able to push yourself more.

So, should you lift weights or should you do cardio? It's going to depend on what your primary goal is, but you don't want to forget about one or the other even if you're focused on that primary goal.

Hopefully, this conversation about weightlifting and cardio helps you narrow down your focus and optimize your training. Check out the blog and podcast to find more discussions to enhance your exercise and progression.