With all the great benefits of Yoga, such as improved flexibility, strength and shape, circulatory health amongst many others, it is becoming more popular than ever. Many people also perform regular cardio to reap the cardiovascular and fat loss benefits. Since most gyms and health clubs offer yoga classes nowadays, it is convenient to do your cardio and yoga on the same days for convenience. After all, we don’t all have time to go to the gym twice a day, or six days a week. The question is, when you do both yoga cardio on the same day, back-to-back, is it better to do the cardio before or after the yoga?
While obviously a matter of personal preference, it is generally considered better to do the cardio first and work up a good sweat, then move on to the yoga for a thorough stretch and cool down, allowing the blood to flow back out of your muscles. The deep stretch and focused breathing with allow your muscles to recover faster from the cardio workout and allow the heart and lungs to calm down gently.
There’s not many things in life that are black and white, and this discussion is no exception. From warm-up to cool-down, there are several considerations. Let’s look at some of the factors involved.
Why Is It Better To Do Cardio Before Yoga?
The underlying reasoning behind the cardio first, then yoga, approach is simply that the cardio is just a sort of dumb exercise, doesn’t require too much thought. Just break a sweat and get the heart rate up for a while, and you’re covered. While many people may put a bit more thought and planning into it, this is essentially the purpose of cardio, and it can be fairly mindless.
After doing the grunt work, it is then time to rejuvenate and refocus the mind and body, thoroughly stretch your muscles, and get your breathing and heart rate back under control. This is precisely what yoga will do for you, and more. I’m not here to list the many purported benefits of yoga, but they are numerous and include improving mood, sleep quality, flexibility, energy levels and many more.
The point is, this stretching and calming effect of yoga will help you cool down after a strenuous cardio workout while helping prevent blood pooling and other hazards associated with abruptly stopping after a workout. Many say it helps you “come down” from a “runner’s high.” It certainly will help prove your mood and feel less anxious.
While most exercise puts a form of stress on the body, helpful and beneficial but stress nonetheless. Yoga is different and calms and strengthens simultaneously.
While this is true, there’s a few factors that may make your situation a little different. For instance if you’re new to yoga and find it particularly challenging, you may prefer to do it first. This is especially true if your cardio is very low intensity. For instance, walking at a moderate pace will probably be less challenging for most people than even beginner level yoga, so it makes sense to do it afterwards.
This may also be the case if you are practicing power yoga, where it is designed to be more of an active workout and not traditional yoga. This is more physically demanding as it is designed to be more of a strength and muscle building workout.
Does It Really Matter Which I Do First?
Of course, whether you do yoga before after cardio is not a matter of life and death (hopefully), but why not do what is optimal? If you find it more convenient, or you get off work at 5 pm and the yoga class is at 5.30 pm, then sure, knock out the yoga first, and get nice and limber before you crank out a few miles on the elliptical machine.
However, if you have the option to do the cardio first, and time constraints etc. are not an issue, you should do the cardio first. Of course, some light stretching before the cardio is great, but you’ll get the muscle-elongating effects of yoga afterwards, once you’ve already burned some calories and got the blood pumping.
Shouldn’t You Stretch Or Do Yoga Before Cardio?
Sure, you should always stretch before any workout, but gently. Your muscles are cold before your workout, so you need to get them ready for the cardio by doing some light stretching of the muscles you will use, e.g. legs for running, everything for swimming.
You can perform the yoga first if you really need or want to, but the intensity of your cardio may suffer. The intensity of the yoga is going to be more or less fixed. Whether that be by an instructor, or sequence of poses that you routinely do, it won’t be significantly more difficult from one session to the next. Your cardio, on the other hand, is a different story – it’s up to you. So, if you are just getting to the gym, fresh and ready to workout, you will probably train pretty hard. But if you attend a somewhat challenging yoga class, then go and get on a treadmill, you might not be inclined (cardio pun) to push it so hard. Sometimes I just need to acknowledge my inner, lazier self and plan accordingly. This is like prioritizing within a weight workout, when you train legs before arms because it takes more effort.
If I Spread Them Out, Can I Do Yoga First?
Of course, only you know your body and how it will respond to different training variables such as time and volume (total amount) of training. Also, in the real world our schedules play a huge factor in what we are even able to accomplish in our training schedules. So feel free to switch it up if you only have access to the 6 am class at the gym/studio, and have to get the kids ready and go to work by 8 am… you get the idea.
Many influential yogis think it is best to perform yoga first thing in the morning, allowing yourself to maximize your day mentally and physically. If you choose to split the cardio and the yoga up, with cardio later in the day, the tiring effect of the yoga will probably be far less than if they were performed consecutively. So, yes you can split them up and do the yoga earlier in the day and still reap maximum dividends from both.
So Should I Prioritize Cardio Or Yoga?
Whether to prioritize cardio or yoga is up to you based on your goals. If you need to lose fat, the cardio is more important as you will burn more calories doing cardio than yoga. If you are at your target weight, or close, and you just want to feel and look your best, and you are interested in the many other benefits of yoga, then focus on that.
The priority principle teaches that whatever you need the most work on, should get trained first. So if you need the cardio more do that first so you can train harder. If you really need to work on your flexibility and core strength, maybe prioritize the yoga. Of course, just because the yoga is prioritized, doesn’t mean you have to perform it first. If you can run, swim, or row harder it’s going to make your workout more effective, so I still recommend starting with the cardio.
Related Questions:
Is Yoga Better Before Or After Weights?
You should do the yoga first. This question appears to fall under the same logic as the question of whether you should do your cardio or yoga first. Since the weight training will most likely be more strenuous, it makes a lot of sense to do that first, before the yoga. However, you will perform better with the weights if you are thoroughly stretched and warmed up, as you would be after a yoga class. It is also possible to stretch too hard after exhausting your muscles. So doing yoga after lifting weights may not be preferable due to an increased risk of injury. After the weights, simply do some light stretching and a 5-10 min cool down walk on the treadmill.
Does Yoga Count As Cardio?
By some metrics, yoga certainly checks several boxes that would qualify it as low intensity cardio. If we define “cardio” as a sustainable physical activity that will stimulate your heart rate to between 50%-70% of its maximum (220 minus your age), yoga may fit that bill, if on the lower end of that scale. Certainly power yoga, and the more active or difficult forms of yoga will elevate your heart rate and burn a good amount of calories, but yoga does so much more. It will lengthen and strengthen muscles, increase flexibility and improve many other things to do with your physical and mental health. However, most yoga is more relaxed, and aims to make your heart rate and breathing more calm and focused. Generally, more standard yoga generally only burns about 2 calories per pound of bodyweight, per hour. So a 180 lbs man will burn about 180 calories in a 30 min yoga class. As a result, yoga will not really count as cardio, but will still be very beneficial to your health and fitness goals.
