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Building bigger muscles (hypertrophy) depends on three factors: genetics, gender, and training intensity. Genetics is mostly manifested as muscle fiber type; people with predominantly fast-twitch fibers acquire larger muscles more easily than people with predominantly slow-twitch fibers. In regards to gender, males acquire larger muscles than females because males have greater amounts of testosterone and other sex hormones that influence protein metabolism. Women experience less muscle hypertrophy with strength improvement than males do. Training intensity is the only factor you can control.
If your training goal is hypertrophy, you should lift at least 80% of your one rep max (1RM). If that is not your goal, keep the weight load less than 80% of 1RM.
ALWAYS! Most people will attempt to hold their breath while lifting heavy weight. When you hold your breath, your blood pressure goes up, then quickly drops when you release it, this may cause you to become dizzy or faint. When lifting, you should focus on exhaling during the harder part of the exercise (lifting, pushing/pulling the weight) and inhaling during the easier part.
Personally if I perform both, I will do cardio first for 2 reasons. 1. Because I don’t perform cardio for a long time before a hardcore weight training workout. I only perform 5-10mins of cardio before any strength or weight training. 2. So that I can complete cardio before my muscles become fatigued. I recommend separating cardio and weight/strength training by performing them on different days. The logic behind this is if you strength train first, it‘s possible that muscle fatigue incurred from the strength training could cause you to decrease the intensity of your subsequent cardio workout, leading to expending fewer calories over the workout as a whole. Same goes for if you perform cardio first.
Ultimately, it depends on your fitness goals. IF you want to do both during the same session then you should perform the most important type of exercise when you are not fatigued. If you want to lose weight and increase muscular strength, alternating the order of the workout during different cycles of training is one way to satisfy both goals.