Cardio or weights first? What the order actually costs you

Written by Martin Ebner
Last updated August 2026

I get asked this a lot, usually by someone hoping there's a magic formula. There isn't one. But the order does matter, more than most people think, and it comes down to a single question.

WHAT ARE YOU TRAINING FOR TODAY?

Whatever the answer is, that thing goes first, while you've still got something in the tank. That's the whole rule and it's the same rule I use for every single session. Big lifts lead because they give the most back. Accessory work follows. Isolation goes last, when it doesn't matter as muh that you're tired.

Cardio is just another item in that queue. The question is where it sits for you.

IF YOU’RE TRAINING FOR STRENGTH OR SIZE, LIFT FIRST

Run first and you'll lift less. Not slightly less, noticeably less, and you'll feel it on the second and third set rather than the first.

Your legs are already tired, the bar feels heavier than it did last week for no reason you can name, and you finish the month lifting exactly what you lifted at the start of it. Do that twice a week for a year and that's a hundred sessions where the best of you went into the warm up.

Lift first, then do your cardio afterwards if you want it. Ten or fifteen minutes at the end won't undo the session you've just done.

IF YOU’RE TRAINING FOR A RACE, RUN FIRST

Everything so far assumes you want to be stronger. Here's where it flips.

If you've got a 10k in eight weeks, the run is the point. Do it fresh. Lift afterwards, lift lighter than usual, and accept that this is a season where the lifting supports the running rather than the other way round.

Nobody has ever run a good race off the back of a heavy leg day. Put the important thing first and let the other one take the hit.

IF YOU’RE TRAINING FOR FAT LOSS, STILL LIFT FIRST

This is the one people get backwards, and it's worth being clear about.

When you're losing weight you're trying to lose fat and keep muscle. The lifting is what protects the muscle. The cardio is just calories out. If you arrive at the weights already emptied by forty minutes on a treadmill, you'll lift badly, and lifting badly for months is how people end up smaller but somehow softer than when they started.

AND THE MOST HONEST POINT

You'll lose more fat by fixing what you eat than by rearranging your training. Cardio burns less than the internet implies and appetite tends to rise to meet it. Training keeps what you've built. Food decides the rest.

SEPARATE DAYS, IF YOUR WEEK ALLOWS IT

If you've got the time, this is the cleanest answer. Lift on Monday, run on Tuesday, and neither one has to be the leftovers of the other.

Most people don't have the time, and that's fine. Nobody needs to reorganise their week around this. Same session is not a problem. It's the order inside of it that matters.

If you can leave six hours or so between the two, better still. Lift in the morning, walk or cycle in the evening. That's not always realistic either, so file it under nice if it happens.

WHAT I’D DO WITH YOU

I coach strength, so I'll be straight about my bias. In our hour I want you lifting, because that's the hour you're paying for and it's the thing that's hardest to do well on your own. Cardio I'd rather you did in your own time.

That isn't me being sniffy about it. Cardio is great for you. Do it. Your heart, your head, your sleep, your ability to carry shopping up four flights without thinking about it. All of that is worth having and none of it comes from a barbell.

It's just that the two pull against each other. Something has to come first, and it can't be both.

If you're skinny and trying to build, keep the cardio to a minumum. Every run is more food you need to find and finding it is already the hard part.

If strength is the goal, save your best energy for the lifting.

And if you're not chasing either in particular, walk instead. Not as a consolation prize, as the real recommendation. It's the easiest thing in the world to keep doing for years, it doesn't eat into your recovery, and it adds up in a way a punishing forty minutes twice a month never does.

If you love running, run. If you love cycling, cycle. I'm not going to talk you out of something you enjoy, because enjoying it is the reason you'll still be doing it in five years.

And if you haven't got a thing yet, start with walking. Not as a consolation prize. It's the one form of cardio nobody ever quits, it doesn't eat into your recovery, and it adds up in a way a punishing forty minutes twice a month never does.

ON HIIT

HIIT's fine. It's a bit old fashioned, though.

It had its moment when everyone decided that twenty brutal minutes could replace an hour, and for some people it genuinely does the job. It's just not the revelation it was sold as.

The bigger problem is stacking. Someone's lifting hard three times a week, then adds two HIIT sessions because a video called it efficient, and six weeks later they're not recovering from anything and can't work out why the lifting has stalled.

If you're already training hard, HIIT is another hard session, not a bonus one. Count it as a fourth workout, not a free extra.

ON FASTED CARDIO

I train fasted on the mornings I haven't got time to eat first. Up, black coffee, out. I quite like the lightness of it, but it's a scheduling thing more than a choice.

So let me separate what I do from what the evidence shows.

You do burn a higher proportion of fat during a fasted session. That part is true and it's where the whole idea came from.

However, it doesn't translate into losing more fat overall. A systematic review of five trials covering 96 people found that training fasted made no difference to weight loss or to changes in fat and lean mass. A separate four week trial put twenty women on a matched calorie deficit, half fasted and half fed, and both groups lost the same. The reviewers' conclusion was that the deficit does the work, not the timing.

So train fasted if it suits your morning. I do. Just don't do it expecting extra fat loss, and definitely don't force it if it makes you feel rotten and eat everything in sight the moment your workout ends.

It's a preference. It was never a strategy.

SO, BEFORE OR AFTER?

Put the thing you care most about first, while you're fresh.

And if you're lifting and walking and eating well, you're already doing more than the person still trying to work out the optimal order.

If you want more of this, I write a wee newsletter called Check It Oot. Once or twice a month, and never anything you'd need to unsubscribe from in a hurry.

Cheers, Martin