Is It Good To Combine Strength Training With Cardio?

You may have had doubts such as whether it is a good idea to combine strength training with the cardiorespiratory to increase your muscle mass and lose body fat at the same time or if your training sessions are better to start with the cardio or resisted training.

Well, as I always say your training program must conform to your current level; Your goals and motivations, and regardless of whether your goal is to gain muscle mass or just improve your muscle tone and/or lose weight, earn it or keep you strength training and cardiorespiratory are fundamental in any program of training for the following:

Through strength training, you will significantly increase your strength and coordination and potency; You can make changes in your body composition as a amento or improve muscle tone and decrease your fat mass; In addition, it positively influences bone mineral density; Etc.

As for cardiorespiratory training, the cavities of the heart can increase markedly and this allows more ability to send blood to the cells; Resting heart rate decreases and increases lung capacity; Lipid metabolism is increased, i.e. you use fats as a source of energy; Etc.

For all this it is essential that in every training program work strength and resistance as they are two human physical capacities fundamental to health, performance and even body aesthetics.

After this long introduction (but for my indispensable), I would like to be able to give you the following information as clearly and concisely as possible, without misleading and misunderstanding. I'm going to talk to you about a specific situation: combining muscle hypertrophy training with cardiorespiratory training.

This combination of which I speak is known as concurrent training, is usually used to achieve a decrease in body fat, improve athletic performance and gain muscle mass or all at once. Well, this proved that training thus has good results in terms of improving body weight and athletic performance, but can hinder muscle growth by giving oneself a phenomenon known as chronic interference.

This phenomenon usually occurs in muscles already well trained and can not adapt optimally, neither morphologically nor metabolically to this combination. Within the muscle cells, different signaling responses are produced that impair muscle gains. A part of this negative physiological impact, this combination can also compromise muscle growth in another way: the acute adaptations of cardiorespiratory training can affect the performance of your muscular training. That is, cardio training can cause residual fatigue and reduce energy substrates in a way that harms your strength training.

A part of the possibility of overtraining because of a possible excess volume or intensity that would make your body can not recover successfully. Don't be alarmed! As I said, you have to do these two forms of training for all the above. However, if your intention is to gain muscle mass and you have some experience with strength training these can be good recommendations:

-To minimize these possible negative effects the recovery periods are key. That is, I recommend that you do separate sessions of strength and resistance, do not combine.

-in the case of not being able to organize it like this, if in a same session you are prepared to realize these two forms of training, first performs the force and then the cardiorespiratory, so as not to compromise the performance of your muscles.

-It is also a good idea to decrease the aerobic volume with cardiorespiratory activities that do not require mobilizing your own weight such as the bicycle or rowing, this can attenuate those negative effects that I was talking about.