Peter Attia, M.D. is the host of the Peter Attia Drive podcast and renowned for his deep knowledge on the topics of longevity and life optimisation. Previously he was also an extremely accomplished open water swimmer, so he knows a bit about balancing cardio and strength training.
Recently on his Instagram Attia addressed one of the questions he gets asked most often:
If you have to do cardio and resistance training on the same day, what’s the order in which to do them?
This is a topic that has sparked endless discussions, but Attia has a simple answer:
“Do the one first that matters the most.”
Deciding which is most important will depend on the kind of workouts you are doing that day. For example, if you do one VO2 max session per week but that session needs to fall on the same day as some resistance training, you should probably direct more energy to the V02 max session and do it first.
The important thing is to not be too dogmatic. He says:
“I know people really want to know there’s a hard and fast rule, and you can never do cardio after weights and vice versa—I don’t think that’s the case. I think it comes down to what you’re optimizing for.”
A personal example he gives is having zone 2 cardio and lower-body resistance training on the same day. Attia knows the zone 2 training is low load and if he has 8 hours to recover before the lower-body training he will feel completely refreshed and ready.
In short, listen to your body and think about what you are training for to decide what is best.
