Is there any benefit to doing cardio before lifting or lifting before cardio?

Research has shown that doing cardio before strength training helps to burn more fat. You should be doing a short stint of interval training and not long steady state cardio. This will help your body dislodge fats for burning. The only challenge is that doing cardio before strength training may reduce the amount of energy you have for strength training there after. So there is a fine balance.

When you choose to do cardio at the gym depends mostly on what your weight training goals are. Cardio goes before if you want to tone up and not gain alot of muscle, cardio goes after if the goal is weight gain. This is because of the energy loss with cardio and the body's chemicals released into the muscles once the training begins

Seems to be about preference...If I do cardio first, and then try to do weights right after, I don't have the energy to perform well...

My prefernce is strength training in the morning, and cardio in the evening...I rarely do both workouts back-to-back...

Time between sets...I do not know...I follow workout plans on DVD so don't worry about it...I just do what the instructor says to do...

I run after I lift. If I run before lifting I won't have any energy so I'll end up lifting less weight and doing less exercises.

Either way is fine. I always do lifting first. I'd rather do weights before to get strengthened up first.

Whatever you're comfortable with.

I'm weird in that I run for 10 minutes, then lift, then run for 10 minutes, etc...

I don't know why I do this but it's been working!!!