The order of operations

Cardio or weights, cardio or weights? Why not do both? If you opt to go this route, you still have a few more decisions to make.

First, are you going to combine your weights and cardio routine into a high-intensity resistance circuit? If so, proceed without asking any further questions. If not, and if you plan to perform one routine and then the other, the question now becomes: which do you do first? The answer, according to researchers from Japan, should be weights first and then cardio.

Holding off on the cardio until the second half of this total workout ensures that you will have plenty of energy for the first half, which is when you're lifting. But, it turns out that there is another health reason to support why you should continue to workout in this order, and it has less to do with abs and more do with blood pressure. Researchers found that people who ran for twenty minutes after resistance training increased the elasticity of their arteries by 2 percent over those who performed their workout in reverse (i.e. cardio first, then resistance training).