People are used to separating cardio and strength training. Many bodybuilders add cardio to their program only when they need to lose fat. Meanwhile, these workouts perfectly complement each other, allowing the athlete to develop harmoniously and proportionately. However, they cannot be combined according to mood, there must be a clear training plan.

The essence of adding cardio to strength exercises is that they have a positive effect on the heart, relieve excess weight and increase endurance. Strength training allows you to build muscle mass. One of the advantages of combining strength exercises with cardio is that you can do it both in the gym and on your own, you only need running shoes and a suitable route for running. The most common cardio for strength training is running outdoors or on a treadmill, cycling, swimming, and an elliptical trainer.

How to combine strength and cardio?
When drawing up a training plan, you need to be guided by your goal. If you want voluminous muscles, give up cardio before strength, otherwise you will not have enough energy for training with simulators. Through the fault of cardio, muscles will not grow and weight will not increase. Limit yourself to a short run for 10-15 minutes, no more, so you will warm up your muscles and save energy for the main workout. Immediately after strength training, there is no point in doing cardio for the same reason – the muscles will become smaller and drier.

If you set yourself the goal of losing fat and becoming more prominent and dry, then feel free to do cardio after strength training. However, you should not do high-intensity cardio, because there is already little energy left. Enough and cardio with an average pace, do not overload the body. If you want to combine strength training and high-intensity cardio, take a break of at least 5 hours between them, or better, separate these sessions on different days.

Time for cardio
When choosing the best time of the day for cardio and strength training, you again need to remember the desired result. If you think that you would do well to reduce the percentage of fat, do cardio in the morning – this will help to accelerate the metabolism, and all subsequent exercises that day will burn more calories. Even if you don’t do anything else at all in a day, thanks to an accelerated metabolism, you will at least not gain anything, but most likely you will also throw it off.

When doing cardio before breakfast, limit low-intensity exercise, even running or cycling at low speed. And most importantly, remember – if you really need muscle volume, regardless of the percentage of body fat, do not add cardio to strength training. In general, forget about this type of training, your norm is a run before strength training.