Strength before or after cardio? What reviews found

Strength before or after cardio? An umbrella review of 17 meta-analyses (1,492 people) found no significant effect of training order on adaptations.

By Hydra Editorial

An umbrella review of 17 meta-analyses (144 studies, 1,492 healthy participants) found no significant effects of training sequence. Trends leaned toward strength-first for strength and hypertrophy, but the authors described them as trends, not confirmed differences, and flagged that data from highly trained athletes are scarce.

What did the largest review of concurrent training find?

Concurrent training means combining resistance and endurance work. The worry has long been an “interference effect”, where one type of training blunts the gains from the other. Held et al., Sports Medicine 2026 pooled 17 earlier meta-analyses to test that idea.

In healthy, mostly recreationally trained participants, combined training produced aerobic gains comparable to endurance training alone. Compared with resistance training alone, strength, power and hypertrophy outcomes were comparable, while aerobic capacity improved more. On sequence, the authors reported no significant effects. Their wording was that performing resistance work before endurance work “may” favour strength and hypertrophy, based on trends rather than a confirmed difference.

That is a summary of averages across many small trials. It says little about elite athletes, whom the authors describe as under-studied.

Does the order matter for power or recovery time?

A narrower question is explosive power. A semi-systematic review by Zhang et al., Frontiers in Sports and Active Living 2026 covered 42 records from 1980 to 2024 (26 human trials, 3 animal studies and 13 reviews). It concluded that strength-first ordering was more favourable for countermovement jump and explosive power. For long-term endurance, hypertrophy and maximal strength, it found no consistent link with order.

The review also discussed acute molecular interference after endurance exercise, and suggested a gap of more than 3 hours between sessions when endurance comes first. That reasoning is mechanistic, and the review lists its own limits: most trials with fewer than 30 people per group, interventions of 8 to 12 weeks, and limited applicability to elite athletes.

Strength work also features in the evidence on running economy and intensity, which is a separate question from order.

The bottom line

  • An umbrella review of 17 meta-analyses (1,492 participants) found no significant effects of session order, only trends favouring strength-first for strength and hypertrophy.
  • Some evidence favours strength-first for explosive power, but it comes from a semi-systematic review that included animal studies and other reviews.
  • Most trials are short and small, and highly trained athletes are under-represented, so averages may not describe any one person.

Frequently asked questions

Does lifting before cardio build more muscle?
Pooled evidence does not show a significant difference. An umbrella review of 17 meta-analyses found no significant effect of sequence, only a non-confirmed trend favouring resistance work first. Most participants were recreationally trained, so the result may not extend to elite athletes.
What is the interference effect in concurrent training?
It is the idea that endurance training blunts strength or muscle gains, and the reverse. In an umbrella review of healthy participants, combined training matched resistance training alone for strength, power and hypertrophy, and matched endurance training alone for aerobic gains, mostly in recreationally trained people.

Sources

  1. Held S, Wolf L, Rappelt L, Bloch W, Donath L, Micke F, Geisler S, Isenmann E, 2026. Maximizing Adaptations in Concurrent Training: An Umbrella Review of Meta-analyses. Sports Medicine, 56(6):1489 to 1512.
  2. Zhang F, Wang Y, Wang J, 2026. The effects, mechanisms, and influencing factors of concurrent strength and endurance training with different sequences: a semi-systematic review. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, article 1692399.
Hydra Editorial

Hydra's editorial team. We write from primary research and cite every study we rely on, with its year and journal. We quantify claims wherever the evidence allows and state plainly where it does not: where a finding rests on a small or single trial, we say so in the text rather than in a footnote.