The reality is, truthfully, far much less climactic: Doing cardio after leg day is A-OK, but it surely’s not a magic bullet to any main advantages—and it might include some minor dangers, relying in your targets. So neglect no matter you heard on TikTok. We’re breaking down the precise science beneath.
Are you able to do cardio after leg day?
In the event you usually comply with up a lower-body energy exercise with a lightweight jog, stair climbing, or treadmill strut, the excellent news is that you simply’re doing nothing fallacious.
You’ll be able to completely do cardio after leg day, says Dan Churchill, MS, coach and efficiency chef with Centr. “I’d suggest holding the depth on the low to average aspect and never intention to do an intense cardio session proper after a brutal leg session, however as a result of your muscle tissues will likely be warmed up by this level, it’s protected and might even be useful to work in cardio after energy.”
Rumors that cardio will harm your muscle features or produce other adversarial results don’t maintain up. To be truthful, although, the concept that doing cardio after energy is unhealthy didn’t come out of nowhere. “We beforehand assumed {that a} bout of cardio train that instantly adopted a energy coaching exercise would impair the mTOR signaling pathway (the metabolic pathway stimulated by energy coaching that stimulates muscle development),” explains Luke Carlson, MS, CEP, licensed train physiologist and CEO and founding father of Uncover Power. “Nonetheless, we’ve little or no analysis to substantiate this.”
For instance, a 2022 analysis evaluate1 revealed in Sports activities Drugs discovered that combining cardio and energy coaching doesn’t compromise muscle hypertrophy or maximal energy improvement, even when included in the identical session. (The researchers did discover that doing each in the identical exercise barely affected explosive energy features, which can be necessary to notice in case you’re coaching for an influence sport or constructing a associated ability.)
TL;DR: in case your aim with a leg-day exercise is to maximise muscle energy or enhance muscle dimension, it’s high quality to do cardio afterward, Carlson says.
Advantages of doing cardio after leg day
Cardio train, typically, comes with a variety of improbable well being perks that make it important to incorporate in your exercise routine, even in case you’re primarily targeted on energy work.
“All cardio has super and ranging advantages to your efficiency and restoration,” Churchill says. “In the event you can goal two to a few hours of zone 2 (i.e., moderate-intensity) cardio every week, after which some efforts at excessive depth, it’s a very good mixture to construct your velocity, endurance, and enhance longevity well being.” Average-intensity cardio coaching can enhance coronary heart well being2, enhance your psychological well being3 and mind perform4, enhance general high quality of life5, and cut back whole early mortality danger6—and that is simply scratching the floor of cardio’s well being advantages.
Nonetheless, doing cardio after leg day, particularly, doesn’t dramatically change the way it impacts your physique. “Past the customary cardiorespiratory variations and persistent illness safety advantages, there’s most likely no good thing about doing cardio instantly after a leg energy exercise,” Carlson says.
Some individuals say that doing mild cardio after energy work will help with restoration or cut back delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), however for now, we simply don’t have proof to again up that declare. “Cardio doesn’t influence restoration, positively or negatively, following an intense energy exercise,” Carlson says.
Even when post-strength cardio doesn’t have a marked impact on soreness or restoration, the American School of Sports activities Drugs (ACSM) nonetheless recommends performing a minimum of a couple of minutes of low-intensity cardio train after a exercise as a approach to calm down. This helps you regularly lower your coronary heart price and blood strain and flow into mobile waste merchandise that accumulate in muscle tissues throughout train, in accordance with the ACSM. So, in case you’re doing mild cardio to wind down from an intense lifting session, there’s some profit there.
Potential dangers of doing cardio after leg day
We repeat: Usually, doing cardio after a leg energy exercise is not any downside, however there are some potential downsides to learn about.
For one, in case your muscle tissues are fairly fatigued after a lower-body lifting session, tacking on a high-intensity cardio exercise like a dash exercise or aggressive indoor biking class may put you vulnerable to harm. “If we practice the legs onerous after which transition right into a run, we is perhaps at a better susceptibility to harm through the run,” Carlson says.
One other draw back of doing cardio after leg day is that it may hinder your cardio efficiency. In the event you’re hopping on a tread as a post-workout cooldown or simply to satisfy your cardio quota, that is perhaps high quality—but when your predominant health aim is cardio-focused, prioritizing energy above cardio may have destructive repercussions.
“For instance, in case you’re a distance runner coaching for an upcoming half marathon, performing a strength-training exercise instantly earlier than your key working exercise will compromise your capability to execute that run,” Carlson says.
A 2016 research7 within the Journal of Power and Conditioning Analysis reveals that separating your exercises by a minimum of six hours diminishes the potential interference results, however doing them on separate days is even higher. “Thus, in case your aim is to arrange for an endurance occasion, both schedule the cardio earlier than the energy exercise or on a non-strength coaching day,” Carlson says.
There’s one exception: In the event you’re coaching for a contest that requires each energy and cardio, corresponding to Hyrox or an impediment race, doing cardio post-strength is a good way to simulate working underneath fatigued legs, Churchill says. “However you will need to observe that overdoing this will result in harm,” he provides. “I’d solely suggest doing this if you’re a sophisticated runner. In the event you’re simply beginning, I’d enable time for relaxation in between.”
The very best sort of cardio to do after leg day
As Churchill talked about above, an important factor to contemplate is your degree of exertion. It doesn’t matter as a lot whether or not you’re hopping on the elliptical, strolling or working on a tread, biking, or stair climbing but it surely’s finest to maintain post-leg-day cardio to a low or average depth to scale back any danger of harm.
That entails working at an effort degree of six (or much less) out of 10, the place zero is the extent of effort required to take a seat and 10 is giving it your maximal effort, in accordance with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC). You may as well use the “speak check” to gauge your cardio train depth: In the event you can speak throughout your exercise however not sing, meaning you’re hovering round average depth. In the event you can’t say quite a lot of phrases with out pausing for a breath, you’re working at a vigorous depth.
Methods to get better after leg day
It is perhaps a bummer to listen to that some post-leg day cardio doesn’t assist cut back your DOMS. If it feels good to you to get blood pumping after you’ve torched your legs, that’s motive sufficient to maintain doing it—simply think about these different restoration suggestions to assist facilitate muscle development and restore.
“The largest influences on restoration following intense energy coaching are sufficient protein and sufficient sleep,” Carlson says. Every day protein consumption between 1.2 to 2 grams per kilogram of physique weight is usually sufficient to help post-workout restoration, in accordance with a joint assertion8 from the ACSM, American Academy of Vitamin and Dietetics, and Dietitians of Canada. As for sleep, the ACSM recommends getting a minimum of eight hours an evening for optimum restoration. Sure individuals may have much more sleep9 or protein, relying on their physique, way of life, and targets.
Different research-backed restoration strategies10 embrace therapeutic massage, compression clothes, distinction water remedy, cryotherapy, and lively restoration (i.e., going for a stroll). “I’m an enormous believer in distinction remedy, and getting in compression boots,” Churchill provides. Therapeutic massage appears to be the simplest at decreasing DOMS and perceived fatigue, and you may get the perks by yourself with therapeutic massage instruments like a foam curler or lacrosse ball.
When you’ve got wildly, terribly sore muscle tissues to the purpose the place you may’t stroll for days, it might be an indication you’re doing an excessive amount of too quick. “In case your aim is to mitigate DOMS, you may as well keep away from novelty and selection within the exercise since soreness is basically attributable to doing one thing new,” Carlson says.
Truthfully, that’s one other perk of doing cardio work proper after your leg exercise: If you’ll be sore within the days following a difficult leg exercise, it is perhaps sensible to get your cardio carried out when you can nonetheless stroll.
