Weights or Cardio first?

[Gobias]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to Cathe but have been exercising for a long time. I have a 2 hour block of time per day I can exercise. I have always done 1 hour of weights first followed by 1 hour of cardio. I have always done this whether I exercise at the gym or at home. The only reason I do it this way is because at the gym I get so sweaty after cardio that I don't want to get the weight machines/benches sweaty for others. And at both the gym and at home I like to immediately shower after cardio so I have always done cardio last.

I've never felt too fatigued after weights to do my hour of pretty intense cardio.

However...today was the first time I did Cathe's Gym Style Legs for an hour and then went to Imax 3 for an hour. It did not go well. While doing the Gym Style Legs, I did feel the burn, but nothing outrageous. Then suddenly when I started Imax 3, my legs were just incredibly fatigued. I have never felt like that before. I wasn't physically tired and my legs weren't sore - my actual legs felt too tired to move.

I can usually get through Imax 3 without any problems and my legs feel the burn but are never tired. I tried doing Imax and basically just marched the whole time (which was even rough!). My HR obviously never even got into target zone and again, I physically wasn't tired, but my legs wouldn't cooperate with what I wanted them to do.

I did the proper warm-up and cool-down for both videos. When I stopped Imax, I took a shower and now my legs are fine (although, I may feel some soreness tomorrow from the Gym Style Legs). Do you think I should revers e my workouts and do cardio first? I'm never extremely tired or sore after cardio.

Perhaps it is because this is the first time I have done this combo, but I switch my workouts up at the gym and home all the time. Or it was just a fluke. Tomorrow I am doing Gym Style Upper and Imax 3 and will see how it goes.

Has this happened to anyone else with any other workouts? I can't separate my workouts to 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour at night unfortunately.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[maddiesmum]

I think the answer is simple.

You put the wrong combo of workouts together and totally over-stressed your system.

Never underestimate a Cathe workout. GS legs is long if you do it all and it works every little bit of the lower body. I wouldn't typically follow this with anything as your muscles need to rest after this so that they can rebuild themselves and focus on repair. That way, your body gets what it needs to enable you to work out again tomorrow, which is what your mind wants to do. However, Imax 3 is the most challenging, most physically taxinga and exhausting of Cathe's interval workouts and like GS legs, needs to be done alone, not the follow up cardio to anything.

If you need, really need, and I question whether you do, need to do anything additional after GS legs or Imax 3, make it something that DOES NOT USE THE SAME MUSCLE GROUPS. So, do some light upper body work, an intense core session, or yoga. Yoga would be ideal to stretch out all the Muscles you have worked so hard, get more blood flow into them to promote healing.

If you insist on doing cardio after a weighted leg workout, make it low impact step, BUT NOT LOWMAX. Lowmax is too leg intensive to follow GS legs.

You don't need to do cardio every day. You might enjoy it, but this is your brain talking, not your body. Your body might benefit from more rest days and work days that are shorter but more focussed, i.e., do the one hard workout, go intensely, then stop and rest, stretch, do yoga, etc. Your body will simply shut down --the experience you had doing Imax 3 after GS legs-- if you exercise it into the ground.

Hope this helps,

Clare

 

[RapidBreath]

Imax 3 is actually a lower body workout in disguise so pairing it up with a lower body weighted workout is probably too much. Also, did you have a snack? You might just have bonked.

 

[kathryn]

What Clare said.

 

[Gobias]

Thanks for the input and advice.

I actually do think part of it was I needed more food. I workout 1st thing in the morning and always have a small snack (probably 300 calories) and then when I am done and showered, I eat a full breakfast. Today I did Gym Style Upper Body (48 minutes) followed by Imax 3 and ate before I started GS, ate before I started Imax, and ate after Imax and was totally fine today. (although, I did upper body weights, not lower like yesterday).

I was actually thinking not to pair Imax 3 with any lower body weight workout but so far that is the only Cathe cardio video I have learned (I just started Cathe) and was going to change cardio videos starting next week since I know Imax 3 pretty well now. Funny you should mention Low Max since that is the other video I have and was going to start next week. Perhaps I will only do it on Upper Body Weight days. Once I learn all the videos, I will then arrange my workout combo schedule better.

I am perplexed since I just started learning Imax 3 about a month ago and have done it after my lower body weight session at the gym with no problem whatsoever. I think you are correct - Cathe's videos are probably more intense than expected.

I do weights and cardio 4 times per week so I don't believe I am overdoing it. Unfortunately I can only do them Mon-Tues-Wed-Thurs. I know it would be ideal to have a rest day in between but the best I can do is alternate upper and lower weight days. Cardio is tough since you really need your legs to get a good cardio effect. Even rowing, which uses a lot of upper body, uses the legs. On Sundays, when possible, I do Stretch Max which I LOVE!

Thanks. Any more advice is appreciated.

 

[DirtDiva]

Sounds like a classic glycogen depletion (hitting the wall). I have learned when there is no more juice in the legs, that's all she wrote and I shut down. However, you can work around that if you hydrate well enough and refuel. On any typical day, I weight train first, then something cardio related later in the day. Example, yesterday I did Lower Body Blast, including the bonus part. Lunch consisted of oatmeal, milk, salmon and an orange. Two hours later I went xc skiing for 2.5 hours with an average HR of 135 bpm. This trail-system was also heavy on the climbing. I was purposely trying to fatigue my legs and break them down. I will follow that up with complete rest and proper refueling. This is how I train in the winter. Summer will be the same, weight lifting in the morning, followed by cycling (mostly mountainbiking) in the afternoon for several hours. I don't recommend this if you are not able to sleep longer then 7 hours (preferably 8) and are short on info on nutrient timing.

 

[Gobias]

Hi All,

I was just going over some of my old original posts and saw this one. I wanted to reply since I don't want to scare anyone from trying Imax, Gymstyles, Low Max.

The next day after my reply I found out I had pneumonia and the flu! And then I eventually got strep throat and bronchitis. Which totally explains why my body just shut down after doing exercises I previously had no trouble doing. I was baffled though why I seemed fine doing the weight workouts both days...it wasn't until I did the cardio when my muscles just stopped working. I am used to lung/breathing problems and didn't notice any breathing problems while exercising - my problem was that my legs just stopped working. I had never felt like that before while exercising. And the fatigue went away after I stopped the little cardio I was able to do. It wasn't until the 3rd day I couldn't get out of bed.

I have since recovered and am back to doing 2 intense Cathe workouts most days. Just didn't want anyone reading this in the future and getting scared!

I recommend all of the videos mentioned.

 

[RapidBreath]

Thanks for the update. I have read and heard from other athletes that you notice that you are ill first with your running and then you get sick later.