Cardio after lifting -- impact of "artificially" higher heart rate?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Hi BBM. First, thank you for everything you do! You have had a positive influence on my life.

Context: I do 30 mins of cardio after lifting, keeping my heart rate around 70-75% of max. To save time, I just start incline walking, biking, rowing, stairmaster, etc. immediately after finishing my lifting. Because of this, my heart rate is already elevated when I start cardio, often already at 70+%. I’ve read Austin Baraki’s post that “it matters how you got there” (source), which made me wonder if I’m getting the full benefits of the cardio since I’m starting with an already “artificially” high heart rate due to lifting, as opposed to gradually building my heart rate up to 70+% from cardio.

Question(s): does doing cardio with an already-elevated heart rate (due to lifting) have any impact on fitness adaptations? If so, should I rest a few minutes between lifting and cardio so my heart rate returns to baseline? Or does this not matter, and I should just continue doing cardio immediately after lifting due to time-efficiency?

Thank you!

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Aelk,

Thanks for the kind words and welcome back. To your question, no, doing conditioning in a fatigued state (after lifting) isn’t really going to affect the subsequent fitness adaptations. A few minutes of rest won’t really alter the cardiac response either, though a few hours would. I don’t think separating conditioning and lifting by a few hours works better for strength or cardiorespiratory adaptations.

-Jordan

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