If you are mixing weighted and unweighted toning…

[alisoncooks]

I like to mix and match short YouTube segments to make my morning workout. I tend to do 10 min heavyish weights for arms, 10 min standing legs and 10 min side-lying legs (Pilates style). (And stretch…)

I’d like to add in a 5-10 min unweighted arm segment. I can either do it first, as a sort of warm up, or I can do it last so that I can give the weights my full ability.

Which would you do?

[prettyinpink]

Usually I do unweighted exercises last, so it’s more of a “burnout” finisher.

Especially if it’s arms.

There are different thoughts about bodyweight exercises for warmup or activation, but for me those work better for lower body.

I think where doing unweighted first might be more helpful is when the weights you have access to aren’t heavy enough for you. Then maybe it helps tire out the muscles a little bit first. So maybe in that way also, it’s also helpful for the lower body, because when you obtain a moderate amount of fitness, it’s difficult to access weight as heavy as the lower body can handle. Home videos try to make that up with pulses, very high volume, adding partial reps, one-legged exercises. So the floor work can be used to pre-fatigue the legs.

I don’t know if it matters much in the long run, though.