The Invisible Line to the Cardio Machines

As a personal trainer, I notice lots of prevalent habits in people. One is the major lack of those who don't eat breakfast. Another, is the "But there's so many carbs in that meal!". I love that one, thanks Atkins Diet...But the biggest and most widely accepted practice is the tendency for, mostly women, to beat themselves silly on the cardio machines for thirty of forty five minutes and THEN doing a workout. I might ruffle some feathers here, but that's fine, that's what I do. Maybe I can wrestle with the bird long enough for it to lay me a golden egg.
But here's what happens. When you use up the energy stored in the cells of your muscles for cardio, your body begins to move to a state of catabolism. Sounds a lot like canabolism right? Same exact context. Now, you move over to lifting weights. What you are doing now is propelling your muscles into tissue breakdown and atrophy. You are now burning muscle for fuel. Your muscles are now the source of energy for the strain you are placing on them for your workout. As the saying goes, you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Not good. It's like taking an employee's pay away from them until they meet your standards. That won't happen, and you will never get them to do what you need them to do to make you successful. First, you have to let them know they'll get paid, then they work if you pay them enough. The more pay and the better the environment, you will see improvements in their actions, and they can now begin to flourish, which makes you, the boss, successful.
This is a very big reason so many people, mostly women, are finding themselves frustrated at not seeing results in their workouts, not seeing any fat loss, and no muscle development. This is because they are actually working against themselves, and not letting the muscle growth happen as fast as it could and should. And growth of lean muscle is what uses fat stores for energy. Cardio is just a secondary means for us to burn off a few extra calories so our muscles can do the job of fat burning a little faster.
So do me a favor, do all trainers everywhere a favor. A slight warm up is fine, even recommmneded. But don't zap your muscles of energy by beating yourself up for 30-45 minutes on cardio machines, then go do resistance training, and expect your muscles to be sculpting your body. Your muscles are powerful if you'll let them grow. Seperate your cardio and resistance if at all possible, or at least do your resistance first, then go to cardio. Try it for 4-6 weeks and notice the difference. Trust me, you'll like what you see. Keep up the hard work!
Be Bold,
Josh