Is it better to do weights or cardio first in a workout?

Medically: no idea.

Personally: I prefer to do cardio first (treadies or otherwise) just to get the heart rate up and what not before going into weights.

-PB

Is it better to do weights or cardio first in a workout?

For athletics training, we have a separate weights day to our running days. When we do our weights day, we'll have a light run afterwards, normally 80 meter runs at 60, 70, 80 and 90%.

I'm not doing particular training though, just aiming for weight loss/muscle tone, so I'll be combining things whenever possible.

Is it better to do weights or cardio first in a workout?

I always get my athletes to do a 5-10 minute warm up to get the blood flow around the specific area working, as well as the heart rate going too on a weight day. As far as cardio training goes, it's better and safer to do it after your weights training. If you do your weights first, you can train the way that you want to train with fresh muscles and good technique, and then if you're stuffed afterwards, you can always downscale your cardio to suit your freshness levels. If you do your cardio first, you are possibly tired and fatigued from a neural or muscular level, which might affect the amount of weight you can lift or the number of sets/reps you want to do, thus affecting the results or "gains" that you want out of a session.

Just as a bit of a background, I have a degree in Sport and Exercise Science and a Masters degree in coaching, as well as having worked in elite sport for the last 3.5 years with an A-League side and now an elite motorsport team, so I'm not some bro scientist that claims to know shit because they've been attending the gym for years, like some people I know that spread all sorts of dangerous misinformation.

Are you allowed to answer which A-League team you worked with? (Just out of curiousity)

I'm not going to be able to be starting on heavy weights/lots of reps anyway

I'm well aware that nutrition is the most important part of fitness (including weight loss/gain). I mean just think about it - you're at the gym for what, 45-60 minutes a day? That's 1/24 hours a day. The rest of the time is all about rest and food so it makes sense that they're more important.

I know what I'm doing with lifting as well, and I know that you need to go to failure with whatever you do to gain muscle. I could bench press 5kgs all day til failure and still put on muscle, just so long as I do it enough that I can't move my arms when I'm done. If anyone wants, I can write out my routine?

Anyone use the app 'MyFitnessPal'?
Pretty amazing tech that it can scan the barcode of a grocery item and spits out its nutritional information.
Even had Coles Right Start cereal on file.

I've used it myself to trial it and also use it for clients looking to lose weight. Even as a tool to actually visualise the breakdown of the foods being eaten, it's great. I don't trust the numbers and goals that it spits out, and sometimes there's foods that aren't in anything except lbs or ounces, but I put all my own recipes into it and it was great.

Anyone use the app 'MyFitnessPal'?
Pretty amazing tech that it can scan the barcode of a grocery item and spits out its nutritional information.
Even had Coles Right Start cereal on file.

Yeah you can always amend anything that's not accurate.

On a separate note, what is your view on the Crossfit games?
I looked at last year's finals list and the events seem more biased to anaerobic fitness rather than aerobic, hence not sure on their definition of 'fitness'.
Your view?

Edited by ozboy: 24/7/2013 06:49:46 PM

CrossFit stands by humiliating workout video
July 4, 2013 - 4:39PM

Stress Urinary Incontinence is a serious health issue that the Australian Physiotherapy Association [APA] says affects 5 million Australians - but you wouldn’t know that from a video released by CrossFit recently. Last week I wrote about their attempt at promotion – a YouTube video of women working out so hard during CrossFit training that they wet themselves. An interviewer in the video even misleads women about what the condition is called, labelling it Exercise Induced Urinary Leakage.

The video attracted widespread condemnation from physiotherapists and doctors specialising in continence issues. A Sydney physiotherapist, Antony Lo, wrote a helpful response here. Despite this, the owner of the CrossFit Mode in Adelaide, James Newbury, insists that I and the experts have got it all wrong. Apparently being a CrossFit instructor who has female participants makes him an expert in women’s health. In an email, Mr Newbury explained to me; “with more research you would have found out there is a difference between the medical condition you speak of [he’s referring to Stress Urinary Incontinence here] and what is actually happening to these women.

“You can have a weak pelvic floor and you can also have a strong pelvic floor that will still give the same result [urinary leakage]. If your core are not [sic] contracting (in time) or in the correct sequence then the result can be the same. This is not a result of CrossFit being too intense and unsafe. This happens to many women even with a laugh or a sneeze. And because of the video, my members have since come to me and said the same thing. It has actually aloud [sic] more women to be open about the issue and find ways to combat it, eg, pelvic stimulation via pilates or yoga.’’

Not everyone finds the concept of the new CrossFit marketing video so hilarious.
Not everyone finds the concept of the new CrossFit marketing video so hilarious. Photo: YouTube

My original piece never said CrossFit generally was too intense or unsafe. I said all training programs were open to abuse by some people, and Crossfit was no exception. I said the video was irresponsible and its messages unsafe because they were inaccurate. I expressed disappointment that CrossFit would use such an unsafe promotion, in case women believed some of the rubbish the presenter talks about. If a company wants to shed light on an issue, why not report on it accurately? And how can the video be interpreted as anything but degrading when women are shown mopping up their own urine? Who is supposed to find this funny? The women watching? Maybe my expectations of humour are too high.

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Mr Newbury is entitled to his opinion. But his comments are in fact wrong. I don’t say so; a Specialist Continence and Women’s Health Physiotherapist, Shan Morrison, does. Also the Director of Women’s and Men’s Health Physiotherapy, Ms Morrison said she had ‘’no idea’’ what Mr Newbury was talking about.

“What these women are experiencing is urinary stress incontinence,’’ she says. “Whether the pelvic floor muscle is weak, strong or has poor timing – leaking urine is evidence of underlying pelvic floor dysfunction which is only going to worsen with further high intensity training and no treatment. Yes it can also happen with coughing, laughing and sneezing – which is what will happen to these women in the future – the urine loss will occur with activities other than exercise – unless they seek help.’’

Here’s hoping Mr Newbury isn’t offering his advice to his class participants.

Ms Morrison also said there was no evidence that yoga or pilates fixes stress incontinence, adding that the term pelvic stimulation used by Mr Newbury was inaccurate terminology. Pilates or yoga may engage the pelvic floor muscles, she said, but participating does not treat urinary stress incontinence or pelvic floor dysfunction. “It requires thorough and individualised assessment and management by a physiotherapist with specific training in pelvic floor rehabilitation,’’ she said.

She said any exercise that caused participants to leak urine should be modified and the participant should seek help. Continuing to overload the soft tissue structures of the pelvic floor could lead to long term, irreversible damage. At no point does the CrossFit video make this point. As I said in my piece last week, for this reason CrossFit can not possibly be praised for drawing attention to an important health condition otherwise neglected. The video offers no reliable or accurate information.

But Mr Newburn insists. “You have actually had a dig at a video that has actually brought light to the situation and made a lot of women feel like they are not alone,” he wrote to me. But I’m not arguing that CrossFit should never have made a video about the condition. I do, however, think it is ridiculous CrossFit tackled the issue inaccurately and with pornographic overtones. Using sleazy music and comments from women like ‘’we’re just putting out’’ indicates they do not see women’s health issues worth of being addressed seriously or helpfully.

‘’They are actually doing all the women with this condition a huge disservice by joking about it, as we know that only 1 in 10 sufferers seek help,’’ Ms Morrison said. “There is strong evidence that shows up to 85 per cent of women with the condition can be successfully treated by continence and women’s health Physiotherapists.” At no point does the presenter in the CrossFit video say the condition is treatable or point women to resources for help. He does not point out that women can be strong, healthy - and not wet themselves in the process. The CrossFit promotion glorifies incontinence – a broken body – as a sign of strength.

How Mr Newbury can claim the video sheds light on anything – apart from CrossFit’s view that women wetting themselves is just so funny and makes them so much hardcore than other women - is not clear. But I’ll pass on his offer to try out one of his classes sometime.

My mrs is a womens health physio and is hugely outraged by crossfit

http://www.dailylife.com.au/health-and-fitness/dl-fitness/crossfit-stands-by-humiliating-workout-video-20130703-2pbal.html

Crossfit is predominantly anaerobic, with only a few WODs involving running, with a lot of WODs being based around completing reps to a time. Of course there is an aerobic component to this, and I challenge anyone to do a WOD and not breathe out their arse, but anaerobic fitness will be the limiting factor. Basically, if you can't crank out the ATP quickly, you're stuffed.

Fitness by definition is one of those grey areas. You could argue that the guys doing the TdF are stupidly fit, and they are, but they are fit in their own specific way. Chances are, if you put them in an anaerobic situation, they would struggle. If you take the bloke that won the Crossfit games and put him in the TdF, he would struggle. Both are fit, but in their own way. Crossfit games test your ability to do Crossfit exercises, so if you win, you are the 'fittest' in the way that Crossfit demands.

In my own personal opinion, Crossfit is essentially circuit training and if done properly with proper technique, can be a great training technique that works on many different areas, but I think it's a bit of a fad. What worries me is that by smashing out big reps with shit technique as quickly as you can, it can be really dangerous. I've seen people doing it and I had to turn away because they wouldn't let me fix their techniques and I didn't feel like watching a bloke go down screaming with his vertebrae going in different directions and his ACL ripping.

Yeah, my definition of fitness is not inline with how cross-fit defines it. As mentioned, I think it is more anaerobically biased.
The Australian cross-fit champion has a best 5km time of 20min, which is pretty average in the context of aerobic fitness/VO2. In the aerobic 'section' of the world cross-fit games (running, cycling, swimming) he came 1st & 2nd but ultimately 9th overall, which just goes to show its anaerobic bias. The cynic in me says anaerobic people are more muscular and that's what sells tickets and tv rights......

An update on my weight gain - I'm up from 75kg to 85kg in 4 weeks. Obviously not all lean gains.

Show me what you eat.

1kg of veges!

-PB

Ok so a standard day:

Throughout the day as a supplement with each meal: 3.5-4L of full cream milk

Breakfast: Protein shake and 2/3 pieces of fruit (I gym it in the morning)

Morning tea (at work): Chicken wrap (fairly large)

Lunch: Cold meat salad (300ish grams of meat) with 2 eggs

Afternoon tea: 200g of tuna or a couple of eggs

Dinner: Salmon/chicken/steak (depending on my mood) with 750g-1kg veges

And maybe a protein bar or something extra if I have kickboxing or indoor on the day. I also sometimes just eat some extra food (whatever's laying around) for the gainz.