Cardiovascular/Aerobic Level and Its Relation to Anaerobic Performance Question

Without making excuses, over the years my workout routine has lost its priority. Since I've returned to weightlifting I have discovered that one of the biggest obstacles to performance is feeling winded and lightheaded even after a few sets of low weight excercises. The only time I had ever experienced this in the past was following a gruelling 1.5 hour leg workout consisting of numerous heavy squats, hack squats, drop set leg extensions and leg curls. It was expected and understood following these leg workouts and a carbo drink usually refreshened me.

I speculate that what I'm now experiencing is due to lessened cardio/aerobic conditioning. Does this sound accurate? If so, would improving my cardiovascular performance be recommended first step before resuming a standard weighlifting routine?

Thanks in advance,

As far as improving your performance in the weight room is concerned, you'd probably be best off just backing off a little more and using lighter weights. It will take some time to return to your previous level of fitness.

If you're concerned about your overall fitness, by all means add some cardio. But the best fix for your weightlifting problem would be to give yourself time to adapt to lifting weights.

No reason why both couldn't be done together. Start off with a nice basic 30 min weight routine then 15-20 min of cardio. Even 5-10 min of cardio is a nice starter. I do think that adding in some cardio helps a lot with overall recovery and energy levels for most folks. Where most people go wrong is ASSuming that that cardio needs to be hamstering away on the machine at 50% max or some shit like that. It can be any number of activities, even jumping rope, hitting a heavy bag, doing GPP type stuff, etc. (lately, I've been doing a form of cardio called 'I'm late!' which means running like hell everywhere I go. Get off the subway, run up the stairs like a mofo to the bus. Get off the bus, run to my office. I started doing this when I was, actually late, and then I found it got me a better seat on the bus, and now I do it just for fun, pretending I'm late)

And the cardio should be a higher intensity, unless you're doing it for active recovery or rehab or in training for some endurance event or just feeling lazy that day.