CoolSculpting in New Jersey of the thighs among other treatments are great in reducing fats. However, they do not deliver strength boost to your body. That is why you must do the right exercise routines after undergoing such procedures.
What are the rules of exercise combinations when looking to combine resistance exercise with cardiovascular or endurance exercise?
They are quite simple – and also quite distinct. First of all, be aware of what your goals are because your goals will have some bearing on what you can and cannot do. If your goal is to build the size and/or strength of your muscles then you must ensure you do not sabotage those aims by exercising incorrectly. The rules which I’ll outline below do not apply as much if you are not trying to get bigger or stronger – but they should be observed by everyone who combines strength and endurance training unless it is not possible to do so.
The main reasons for combining these two training modalities are:
*To minimise body fat,
*To train the heart and circulatory system,
*To do more complete exercise sessions in a single workout due to time constraints and convenience.
There are two main ways of combining cardiovascular exercise with resistance exercise, to build muscle tissue and muscle strength:
- Keep cardio and resistance training sessions to separate days.
- Do both forms of training on the same day.
Both methods will require a measure of diligence. Looking at the first option, keeping the sessions to separate days – ensure you consider what type of exercises you are doing on consecutive days. If you are going to be doing heavy lifting with your legs on a Monday you must ensure you don’t do a long run on the Sunday, because doing a heavy endurance session on the day before a heavy weight training session will make you much more likely to develop an injury from the weight training. If you were to reverse the order and do a heavy weight training session on the first day and the heavy endurance session the next day you would be less likely to get injured.
However, be aware that doing heavy sessions of any sort of training on consecutive days is not advised and should only be done when you lack options.
When looking at the second option, doing endurance or cardio on the same day, the rules become even more important. In this instance the sequence remains the same – cardio training should always follow the weight training. This is not just for injury-prevention purposes. It is also because of the effectiveness of the training. If you do strength training after a full endurance session your body will not adapt properly to the strength training. Your muscles do not contract properly for strength training after an endurance session and the nerves lose their coordination as well, if endurance training is done before strength training.
Most importantly, your muscles are very unlikely to grow or get stronger if you do your cardio training before your weight training.
Many people ask why this rule applies and the reasons are quite simple, really. Consider the physiology of exercise processes and the follwing factors apply:
It becomes more obvious, when you look at the training physiology, why these rules exist. The main points which apply are listed below:
*Strength training is reliant on what are called “fast twitch” muscle fibres. These fibres contract very powerfully but do not endure – so they cannot perform for long periods of time.
*If you do a cardio or endurance session BEFORE a strength training session, the fast twitch fibres will be exhausted already and will not be capable of contracting to their full capability. This gives the exact same effect as doing light resistance training – or using light weights for high reps – you do not use the full potential of the fast twitch fibres so they are not challenged to grow and they wont grow.
*One more aspect to this combination is injuries – the fast twitch fibres are coordinated by the nervous system – like all muscle fibres – but nervous coordination is much more important for fast twitch fibresbecause of how powerfully they contract. When you do cardio or endurance work the nervous system tires as well as the muscle fibres and this leads to a loss of coordination in the firing of the muscles. It’s not always very obvious when coordination is lost – but it is significant enough to increase your risk of getting injured, due to the muscles no longer moving the joints along as exact/precise a trajectory of motion as they would when fresher.
*Think of the previous point this way – if you needed to balance on one leg – or if you needed to do a basketball slam dunk – your chances of success are much better before running a 10k race than after.
Those are the physiological reasons why it is not advised to do long-duration or cardio activities before strength and muscle-building exercises. I hope that makes sense to everyone.