| While the benefits of both cardiovascular exercise and resistance training have been well documented, there is a lack of evidence for the order of exercise that is most effective when both are done in the same day. This study was designed to look at two groups of participants performing both resistance (R) and cardiovascular (C) training in the same day to determine if their order, resistance before cardiovascular (R-C) or cardiovascular before resistance (C-R), matter with regard to changes in body composition, maximal strength, and maximal aerobic capacity. The participants were 17 women between the ages of 30 and 55 years, with a BMI of ?25 or body fat percentage ?30% and no apparent risk of heart disease. They were randomly assigned into two groups (R-C = 9; C-R = 8) performing 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at 60-70% of their estimated VO2MAX and 7 exercises for 3-4 sets of 6 repetitions at their 6-repetition maximum with the R-C group performing the resistance training first and the C-R group performing the cardiovascular training first. There were three days of testing pre- and post-intervention for body weight, percent fat, fat mass, lean body mass, maximal bench press, maximal deadlift, and VO2MAX. There were no significant differences between groups in any of the variables, although there were trends toward significance in the maximal deadlift (R-C +13.5+/-8.6kg, ES = 1.15; C-R +6.8+/-5.6kg, ES = 0.42) and VO2MAX (R-C +2.8+/-2.4 ml/kg/min, ES = 0.41; C-R +0.9+/-1.0 ml/kg/min, ES = 0.31). Neither group lost significant amounts of body weight. However, there were significant pre- to post-intervention changes in percent fat, fat mass, lean body mass, maximum deadlift, maximum bench press, and VO2MAX for the C-R group and percent fat, fat mass, maximum deadlift, maximum bench press, and VO2MAX for the R-C group. There were also practically significant between group differences with the C-R group improving more in body fat percentage (ES = 0.89) and lean body mass (ES = 0.68) and the R-C group improving more in 1RM deadlift (ES = 1.50) and VO2MAX (ES = 1.57). |
