Can You Do Cardio After Leg Day? Here’s What Science Says About FitTok’s Most Recent Debate

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 overlook no matter you heard on TikTok. We’re breaking down the precise science beneath.

Are you able to do cardio after leg day?

When you sometimes comply with up a lower-body power exercise with a lightweight jog, stair climbing, or treadmill strut, the excellent news is that you just’re doing nothing fallacious.

You may completely do cardio after leg day, says Dan Churchill, MS, coach and efficiency chef with Centr. “I’d advocate protecting the depth on the low to reasonable facet and never purpose to do an intense cardio session proper after a brutal leg session, however as a result of your muscular tissues shall be warmed up by this level, it’s protected and may even be useful to work in cardio after power.”

Rumors that cardio will harm your muscle positive aspects or produce other hostile results don’t maintain up. To be truthful, although, the concept doing cardio after power is dangerous didn’t come out of nowhere. “We beforehand assumed {that a} bout of cardio train that instantly adopted a power coaching exercise would impair the mTOR signaling pathway (the metabolic pathway stimulated by power coaching that stimulates muscle progress),” explains Luke Carlson, MS, CEP, licensed train physiologist and CEO and founding father of Uncover Energy. “Nevertheless, we’ve little or no analysis to verify this.”

For instance, a 2022 analysis assessment¹ revealed in Sports activities Medication discovered that combining cardio and power coaching doesn’t compromise muscle hypertrophy or maximal power growth, even when included in the identical session. (The researchers did discover that doing each in the identical exercise barely affected explosive power positive aspects, which can be vital to notice in the event you’re coaching for an influence sport or constructing a associated talent.)

TL;DR: in case your objective with a leg-day exercise is to maximise muscle power or improve muscle measurement, it’s effective to do cardio afterward, Carlson says.

Advantages of doing cardio after leg day

Cardio train, generally, comes with plenty of improbable well being perks that make it important to incorporate in your exercise routine, even in the event you’re primarily targeted on power work.

“All cardio has super and ranging advantages to your efficiency and restoration,” Churchill says. “When 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 an excellent 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 operate⁴, enhance general high quality of life⁵, and scale back whole early mortality danger⁶—and that is simply scratching the floor of cardio’s well being advantages.

Nevertheless, doing cardio after leg day, particularly, doesn’t dramatically change the way it impacts your physique. “Past the customary cardiorespiratory variations and continual illness safety advantages, there’s in all probability no good thing about doing cardio instantly after a leg power exercise,” Carlson says.

Some folks say that doing gentle cardio after power work will help with restoration or scale back delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), however for now, we simply don’t have proof to again up that declare. “Cardio doesn’t affect restoration, positively or negatively, following an intense power exercise,” Carlson says.

Even when post-strength cardio doesn’t have a marked impact on soreness or restoration, the American School of Sports activities Medication (ACSM) nonetheless recommends performing not less than a couple of minutes of low-intensity cardio train after a exercise as a strategy to settle down. This helps you progressively lower your coronary heart fee and blood strain and flow into mobile waste merchandise that accumulate in muscular tissues throughout train, based on the ACSM. So, in the event you’re doing light cardio to wind down from an intense lifting session, there’s some profit there.

Potential dangers of doing cardio after leg day

We repeat: On the whole, doing cardio after a leg power exercise is not any drawback, however there are some potential downsides to find out about.

For one, in case your muscular 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 might put you prone to damage. “If we practice the legs exhausting after which transition right into a run, we is perhaps at a higher susceptibility to damage through the run,” Carlson says.

One other draw back of doing cardio after leg day is that it might hinder your cardio efficiency. When you’re hopping on a tread as a post-workout cooldown or simply to fulfill your cardio quota, that is perhaps effective—but when your essential health objective is cardio-focused, prioritizing power above cardio might have destructive repercussions.

“For instance, in the event you’re a distance runner coaching for an upcoming half marathon, performing a strength-training exercise instantly earlier than your key operating exercise will compromise your potential to execute that run,” Carlson says.

A 2016 examine⁷ within the Journal of Energy and Conditioning Analysis reveals that separating your exercises by not less than six hours diminishes the potential interference results, however doing them on separate days is even higher. “Thus, in case your objective is to organize for an endurance occasion, both schedule the cardio earlier than the power exercise or on a non-strength coaching day,” Carlson says.

There’s one exception: When you’re coaching for a contest that requires each power and cardio, corresponding to Hyrox or an impediment race, doing cardio post-strength is a good way to simulate operating below fatigued legs, Churchill says. “However you will need to word that overdoing this could result in damage,” he provides. “I’d solely advocate doing this if you’re a sophisticated runner. When you’re simply beginning, I’d enable time for relaxation in between.”

The very best kind of cardio to do after leg day

As Churchill talked about above, crucial 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 operating on a tread, biking, or stair climbing but it surely’s finest to maintain post-leg-day cardio to a low or reasonable depth to scale back any danger of damage.

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, based on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC). You may as well use the “speak check” to gauge your cardio train depth: When you can speak throughout your exercise however not sing, which means you’re hovering round reasonable depth. When you can’t say various phrases with out pausing for a breath, you’re working at a vigorous depth.

The way to recuperate after leg day

It is perhaps a bummer to listen to that some post-leg day cardio doesn’t assist scale back your DOMS. If it feels good to you to get blood pumping after you’ve torched your legs, that’s purpose sufficient to maintain doing it—simply think about these different restoration ideas to assist facilitate muscle progress and restore.

“The most important influences on restoration following intense power coaching are enough protein and enough sleep,” Carlson says. Each day protein consumption between 1.2 to 2 grams per kilogram of physique weight is mostly sufficient to help post-workout restoration, based on a joint assertion⁸ from the ACSM, American Academy of Diet and Dietetics, and Dietitians of Canada. As for sleep, the ACSM recommends getting not less than eight hours an evening for optimum restoration. Sure folks might have much more sleep⁹ or protein, relying on their physique, way of life, and targets.

Different research-backed restoration strategies¹⁰ embody therapeutic massage, compression clothes, distinction water remedy, cryotherapy, and lively restoration (i.e., going for a stroll). “I’m a giant believer in distinction remedy, and getting in compression boots,” Churchill provides. Therapeutic massage appears to be the best 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 muscular 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 objective is to mitigate DOMS, it’s also possible to keep away from novelty and selection within the exercise since soreness is essentially brought on by doing one thing new,” Carlson says.

Actually, that’s one other perk of doing cardio work proper after your leg exercise: If you already know you’ll be sore within the days following a difficult leg exercise, it is perhaps clever to get your cardio completed whilst you can nonetheless stroll.