How Should Cardio Fit into a Body Recomposition Workout Routine?

6 min readBody recomposition (a.k.a. “body recomp”) generally refers to the process of losing body fat and gaining muscle mass at the same time. It’s the best-case scenario for anyone wanting to reduce body fat, improve metabolic health, and reap all the benefits of building more lean muscle mass. That said, it can be a tricky process. You have to really dial in on your nutrition and your workout routine in order to pull it off because the two goals can sometimes undermine each other.“Broadly speaking, the biggest lever we can pull for fat loss is managing caloric intake, and the biggest lever for muscle growth is strength training,” explains Brent Momb, PhD, a muscle biology researcher and body composition coach for Strong Standard. So where does cardio fit in?Online, some will say that cardio is unnecessary or can even hurt your body recomp progress. But, before you swear off running, your favorite dance class, or your weekend sport with friends, keep reading to understand how cardio can—and should—fit into your body recomp goals.Meet the experts: Brent Momb, PhD, is a muscle biology researcher and body composition coach for Strong Standard. Ethan Young, PT, DPT, is the owner and physical therapist at Ascend Rehab & Performance.Should You Do Cardio If Body Recomp Is Your Goal?Generally speaking, yes—and it may even help you get there faster.It comes down to the fat loss piece of the body recomp equation. Research suggests that cardio can help with fat loss, especially when paired with strength training. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that cardio alone and concurrent training (a routine including both strength and cardio) were more effective at reducing fat mass compared to resistance training alone.As for why it’s so helpful? “Cardio’s primary role in body recomposition is to increase energy expenditure,” explains Ethan Young, PT, DPT, the owner and physical therapist at Ascend Rehab & Performance. That means that cardio can help burn some extra calories and keep you in the calorie deficit needed to lose body fat.What about the other half of the equation: gaining muscle? Research reviews have concluded that doing cardio in addition to strength training generally doesn’t seem to compromise muscle or strength gains. For example, another 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found that concurrent training is just as effective as resistance training alone for increasing muscle mass in middle-aged and older adults. Other research has found that some small interference is possible, though it’s still unclear whether that meaningfully affects whole-muscle growth, and is most often seen from running compared to cycling or other aerobic sports.Plus, outside of your body recomp goals, it’s important to remember all the great things cardio does for your health. “Cardiovascular activity is fantastic for general health and well-being, primarily because it drives positive adaptations in the cardiovascular system and other organ systems too,” Momb explains. “It strengthens your heart, improves blood vessel function, supports brain function, and improves blood markers associated with chronic disease, like cholesterol and blood glucose.”Overall, strength training is certainly the priority for body recomposition, but cardio can help boost your fat-loss results—and, more importantly, is a boon for your health no matter your aesthetic goals. Take it from Young: “Even if cardio did nothing to change how someone looked, it would still be worth doing for its overall health benefits.”How to Include Cardio In Your Body Recomp Routine1. Prioritize Strength TrainingIf your goal is body recomp, plan your routine around your strength work. “If someone is in a caloric deficit and actively losing body fat, I'd first and foremost prioritize strength training and adequate protein intake so they aren't losing muscle mass along with the fat,” Momb explains. “Those two levers, training stimulus and protein, are what preserve lean mass while calories are restricted.”It’s a good idea to follow a program designed specifically for body recomposition or work with a coach or trainer who can personalize a routine for you. As a baseline, aim to target all your major muscle groups at least twice per week with strength work, per recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Then, once you’ve got your strength training schedule nailed down, find the best times to add in cardio when you can.2. Get Enough—But Not Too MuchMore cardio isn’t always better. You may have heard the myth that cardio “kills” muscle gains, and while that’s not explicitly true, too much cardio (especially when combined with calorie restriction) may affect your ability to build muscle. “An overly aggressive calorie deficit can compromise recovery and training performance and increase the likelihood of losing muscle, which works against the goal of body recomposition,” Young explains.So, where’s the sweet spot? “Cardio recommendations for body recomposition are highly individual,” Young says. “Training experience, current body composition, strength training volume, sleep, stress, and injury history should all be considered.” For many people, a good starting point is 2 to 3 moderate-intensity sessions per week, lasting 20 to 40 minutes each, he says. This will help nudge you toward the recommendations set by the ACSM to maintain good cardiovascular health—150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiovascular activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity per week, or an equivalent combination—without going overboard.Those recommendations can be daunting when you’re already dedicating time to resistance training. “For people with limited time, adding in some higher-intensity work, like interval training, can be a more time-efficient way to get a similar cardiovascular benefit,” Momb says. “Something like two 20-minute interval sessions per week (e.g., 30 seconds hard, 90 seconds easy, or 60 seconds hard, 60 seconds easy, repeated) can go a long way without eating up your whole week.”3. Do What You Enjoy Both Young and Momb agree on this: It’s best to choose a cardio workout you actually like doing, whether that’s running, hiking, cycling, or playing competitive pickleball or in a community soccer league. “The specific type of cardio matters less than choosing something you enjoy, can do consistently, and can recover from,” Young says.Keep in mind that it’s not only what you do in the gym that counts. Boosting the amount of movement you get from activities of daily living (such as walking the dog, taking the stairs, hauling groceries) can meaningfully increase your total energy expenditure, which can help keep you in a calorie deficit without logging hours on cardio machines.4. Keep Overall Effort and Recovery in Check“Ultimately, cardio should support strength training and overall health without creating so much fatigue that it compromises recovery, performance, or muscle growth,” Young says.If you add cardio to your workout routine on top of strength training, Momb recommends watching your calorie budget, keeping an eye on how it impacts your appetite, and paying attention to how fatigued you feel. “Subjective fatigue can be gauged by your sleep quality, general levels of motivation, your level of energy, and your desire to train, among other things,” he says. “We can only recover from so much stress at any one time—physical stress from training plus the psychological stress of everyday life—and that ‘stress budget’ gets even tighter when you're in a calorie deficit trying to lose fat.”It’s a good idea to take at least one rest day per week, and watch for signs of overtraining.5. Consider Training PhasesBody recomposition isn’t impossible, but it can be difficult. Separating them into distinct phases—à la “bulking” and “cutting” may help you progress, or at least allow you to focus wholly on one goal at a time.“From a long-term nutritional perspective, we should likely cycle through periods of defined fat loss (a consistent calorie deficit) and periods of defined muscle growth (a slight calorie surplus),” Momb says. Fat-loss phases typically run somewhere in the 4-to-16-week range, while growth phases should be longer and slower (for example, 24-plus weeks) to bias the body toward building muscle rather than just gaining fat, he says. “Both phases should be built on a backbone of weight training that's progressive, i.e., consistently trying to get stronger.”Find the Perfect Women’s Health Training Program for YouJustin SteeleRona Ahdout//Hearst OwnedLauren Mazzo, CPT, is a writer and editor with over a decade ofexperience covering health, fitness, and wellness. She’s heldeditorial positions at Shape, POPSUGAR, and Peloton, and written forpublications and brands including Self, Glamour, Well+Good, Equinox,and Travel + Leisure. Lauren is also a certified personal trainerthrough the American Council on Exercise with additionalspecializations in behavior change, fitness nutrition, and functionaltraining. After spending four years as a digital nomad and visitingmore than 40 countries, she’s now based in New York City. When she’snot writing or working out, you can catch her hopping on a flight orlearning to surf, ski, or mountain bike.