Does incorporating cardio into a strength training routine result in faster progress?

In the strength training world, cardio is often viewed as a weight loss tool but this conventional wisdom misses an important point.

Cardio training isn’t about burning calories or losing belly fat. It’s about training the cardiovascular system - your heart, lungs and blood vessels.

This has important correlations to strength training.

A good workout should be performed with a high enough intensity to trigger adaptations needed to grow muscle.

If your cardiovascular system is strong, this translates to better use of oxygen (VO2 max) and faster recovery times allowing you to perform strength training exercises at a higher intensity and at a greater frequency.

What does this all this result in? Faster progress.

This doesn’t mean prioritising cardio over strength training. You’ll have to program it wisely into your routine.

For example, a strength training program incorporating cardio can look like this:

• Day 1 - Upper Body (Chest, Back, Shoulders)

• Day 2 - Lower Body (Legs, Deadlifts)

• Day 3 - Steady-state cardio (e.g. long run at low heart rate for at least 20 minutes)

• Day 4 - Upper Body (Chest, Back, Shoulders & Arms)

• Day 5 - Core + HIIT (e.g. ERG Concept 2 - 2 min warm up; (2 min ON → 1 min OFF) x4)

To ensure success make sure you:

• Maintain a caloric surplus. Know your maintenance calories and ensure you’re on a surplus (or deficit if you want to lose weight). Unless you know the caloric content of everything you consume, it’s likely you’re grossly under or over-estimating this figure. Be scientific and track it through widely available apps.

• Prioritise recovery. The workload will be quite taxing on the central nervous system so give it enough time to recover. Otherwise all the training could have a detrimental effect. Your body is the best barometer so prioritise rest when you feel a deep fatigue that permeates into daily life.

Cardio should be incorporated into any well-rounded strength training program.

It creates a robust and resilient body which translate into more effective workouts.

The heart is, after all, the most important muscle in the body. If it’s weak, your whole body follows so take some time to train it.