When it comes to exercise, you definitely want to know, “what’s the best time to work out?” “When should you work out, morning, evening, afternoon, or night?” what’s the best time to work out to lose weight? What’s the best time to work out to gain muscles?
The answer isn’t as simple as it looks because exercising in the morning, afternoon, evening, or night has its own benefits and disadvantages.
The answer to this question depends on your fitness goal. However, Working out any time of the day gives you many health benefits. But choosing the right time to work out may help you achieve your fitness goal faster.
Fitness goals depend from person to person. Some people want to gain muscles, some want to lose weight, and some just want to maintain their fitness. Whatever your goal is, in this article, I’ve tried to cover as many things as possible related to the query “Best time to work out.”
I’ve shared the pros and cons of working out in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night which will help you decide what’s the best time for you to exercise, depending on your goal.
Pros and Cons of Morning Time workout
Benefits of Morning Exercise
A morning workout is an incredible strategy to begin your day – for various purposes. Managing your family priorities and working 9 hours job as well as spending time on your hobbies give you a strong excuse to skip the exercise. However, it would be great if you do the workout just after you wake up.
Here we take a look at the benefits of the Morning Time Workout:
1. Morning Workout gives you Extra energy
Morning exercises are among the finest methods to really feel energized and ready for your day. Certainly, working out in the morning gives you extra energy than your breakfast. You’ll gain immediate energy, activeness, and mindfulness that help you in your working life and increase your performance & productivity.
2. Exercising in the morning improves your mood
Working out in the morning is the best thing to kickstart your day. A morning workout makes you feel active and fresh throughout the day. Workout helps you improve your mood, and an excellent mood helps you think of creative ideas.
3. Morning workout makes you feel refreshed throughout the day
Working out in the morning can help you in feeling refreshed throughout the day. Understanding that you just began your day by doing one thing wonderful for yourself and you are well-being.
4. Working out in the morning Improve the quality of your sleeping
Exercise, typically, is understood to advertise higher sleeping habits. However, exercising in the evening/night could make it more durable to go to sleep at night time (because it boosts your endorphins).
One analysis discovered that people who exercise in the morning could sleep longer than those who exercise in the evening. Morning exercises are one of the simplest ways to reap the entire sleep advantages of a train.
5. Morning workout lowers your blood tension
Regular exercise is improbable for serving to stop hypertension. As it seems, exercising in the morning is perhaps even higher!
A similar examination talked about beforehand additionally discovered that an early morning workout is the greatest way to decrease blood stress. Some studies also found that working out in the morning decreased blood stress by 10%. Low blood pressure prevents many diseases like cardiac arrest etc.
6. Morning workout reduces stress
Exercising in the morning reduces your stress level, which you feel because of your work, lifestyle, or any other reason. Working out early in the morning will reduce and cope up with your stress hormones.
How to start working out in the morning?
According to an article published by the European Journal of Social Psychology, to make something a habit, one needs to do that for at least two months. So, if you start exercising in the morning and if you stay consistent for the next two months, then you’ll be used to it.
We know that it’s difficult to hit the gym in the early morning. However, if you start exercising in the morning day in and day out before you go to the workplace, Then you’ll really feel extra active, assured, and prosper in many wells being advantages.
If you can add the morning workout to your daily routine, that would be good. But one thing we should keep in mind is that a consistent workout has many benefits, don’t matter what time of the day we work out.
The most important thing is that we have to make work out a habit whether we do it in the morning, day, evening, or night. The best time to train is the time that works suits for you.
Disadvantages of Morning Workout
Morning workouts, while convenient, also have significant disadvantages that may give you a reason to change your routine to later in the day. So, let’s find out what could hold you back from working out in the morning:
1. Lower Energy Stores
During the night, your body uses to stores glycogen, the main energy source for your body. When you wake up, it takes a few hours to replenish these energy stores.
If you work out in the morning, your body breaks down fat for energy without using stored glycogen. However, this breakdown is less efficient, and you may feel tired much earlier than if you work out later in the day.
2. Morning workout is not much effective for muscle gain
Working out in the morning doesn’t help in promoting muscle gain. Even I realized this because when I was working out in the evening time around 6 pm, my muscles were growing, but when I started exercising in the morning, I saw no improvement in my muscle gain.
My muscles were stable; they were neither decreasing nor increasing. The reason your muscles uses glucose to fuel weight-lifting and resistance workouts is that you don’t yet have sufficient stores, which doesn’t help in increasing muscle gain.
However, a morning workout helps some people with muscle gain, mostly lean people but not everyone. If your goal is to increase muscle mass, then you may take a pre-workout meal because it might help you in muscle development.
3. High chances of Injury
Exercising first thing in the morning depends on person to person, but if you’re waking up and immediately working out, then chances are you’re not completely awake.
Working out when you’re still tired puts you at greater risk of injuring yourself because you’re not paying attention to your body or your environment.
So to avoid injuries or cramps, you need a warm-up before lifting, pulling, or pushing any heavier stuff.
4. Metabolism Changes
Exercising in the morning boosts metabolism early in the day, but your metabolic rate usually slows down later in the day. But working out in the afternoon or evening boosts your metabolism throughout the day, which is beneficial when dinner is your main meal of the day because it will provide you with more calories.
From a weight loss and weight maintenance perspective, some people prefer workout when they consume more calories because It might help in losing those calories so they can maintain their weight. It might be unscientific, but this is practically true.
Pros and Cons of Evening or Night Time Workouts
Benefits of Workout At Evening or Night
Here are the important benefits of exercising in the evening time:
1. More optimistic life after work hours:
The evening or night workout will help present a surge of energy for the remainder of the day, which is very required in the event you have a troublesome day at work.
2. Your physique is extra bodily ready:
For most of us, our hormone ranges and physique temperature are at their peak at 6 pm. In addition, as we talked about earlier, your physique can also be extra versatile throughout this time and less inclined to accidents.
3. Longer exercises
Since you don’t have to consider work anymore, you may spend extra high-quality time in the gym. This signifies that you’ll spend extra time warming up and doing all your core exercises.
4. Faster muscles gain
I personally realized that working out in the evening time can increase your muscle mass. Working out in the evening time has the advantage of muscle gaining faster compared to the same workout plan done in the morning.
5. Extra time to sleep
You’ll get some additional time to sleep, and also you don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning. You’ll also get extra time to spend in the gym.
The disadvantages of Working out at Evening/Night
Evening workout can be enjoyable, but it also comes with some drawbacks. And below are the followings:
1. Distractions
A final-minute dinner plan or assembly with pals are widespread distractions that usually happen within the night. This could trigger you to take gym time properly off the schedule.
Additionally, after a protracted day, chances are you’ll not really feel as pumped to work out and it might be extra tempting to spend the remainder of the day on the sofa or mattress.
2. Workout limitations
Due to security issues and the climate changing into unpredictable in the evening/night throughout the wintertime, you may need to restrict yourself to indoor exercise solely.
3. Gym crowds
Some people don’t wake up early so that they can hit the gym; some don’t feel energetic during the morning time, and some don’t have time in the morning because of their lifestyle. Hence, many people hit the gym in the evening, which makes the gym a crowdy place.
Because of the crowd, you won’t be able to work out the way you want; you won’t get a smith machine, treadmill, or other equipment when you need it. So this makes one of the drawbacks of the evening/nighttime workout.
4. Sleep disruptions
Working out two to 2-3 hours earlier than bedtime can have an effect on the general high quality of your sleep. Depending on the depth of your workout, you’re in an extra energetic state of publishing a workout, which may make it harder to go to sleep.
Exercises in the Afternoon
According to a study, our body’s temperature is high during the afternoon, and working out at that time can be beneficial.
In the afternoon, your body temperature optimizes muscle function, increases strength, and allows you to perform exercises comfortably.
During the afternoon time, your oxygen uptake kinetics are usually faster. And because of this, you don’t need to warm up a lot, and you have that warm-up “time span” you can utilize in other major exercises.
Additionally, your reaction time is at its quickest in the afternoon, which allows you high-intensity exercise like HIIT, sprinting, jumping, or running on the treadmill.
But if you workout in the afternoon, make sure
- You had your last meal two to three hours before the workout
- Your body is hydrated
- Your mind is ready to enjoy the workout.
What’s the best time to work out to lose weight?
Morning time. Because If you work out in the morning, your body breaks down fat for energy without using stored glycogen as well as allows you to burn extra fats that help you lose weight.
However, the weight loss process is complex and depends on several other factors, especially calorie management. If your body burns 2500 calories a day, but you consume 3000, you’ll never lose weight. So, along with the workout, you need to consume low calories food as well as try intermittent fasting (the best way to accelerate the weight loss process).
However, if you can’t work out in the morning, then choose to do your fat loss workouts when you are most likely to do them and when your body and mind are ready to do their best so you can put forth a really good effort.
When’s the best time to work out for weight gain?
Exercising in the evening may help you gain weight and is good for muscle building. Even I realized this because when I was working out in the evening time around 6 pm, my muscles were growing, but when I started exercising in the morning, I saw no improvement in my muscle gain.
My muscles were stable. They were neither decreasing nor increasing. So, on that basis, I would say it’s evening time. But there’s no science behind it.
Everyone’s body responds in different ways, so you can also gain muscles with the morning exercises. But the important point is to be consistent with the workout as well as feed your muscles enough protein so that they can grow.
If you want to gain weight and build muscles, make sure you put in full effort, try different workout variations, try different timings until you see noticeable changes, increase your lifting and eat sufficient foods and drinks.
The Bottom Line
Exercise is essential for a healthy and energetic life. Regular exercise and physical activities have many proven benefits, such as; improving heart health & immune system, strengthening muscles & joints, increasing stamina and strength; maintaining blood pressure, improving the digestive system; protecting from diseases, improving immunity level; increasing self-confidence, build an aesthetic figure, fix bad postures and many more unseen benefits.
At the end of the day or the start, depending on your daily schedule – the time you choose for exercise should work the best for you and one that suits your daily routine.
For morning people, exercising in the morning can be comfortable, interesting, and exciting; however, for others, it can be quite stressful. On the other hand, exercising in the evening may help you feel refreshed and strong, but doing it near bedtime may affect your sleeping pattern.
Most importantly, managing time for physical activity is really important. And always keep in mind that only exercise is not going to help you. Whether you do morning exercise or night, you also need to focus on your diet. A nutritious diet can enhance your efficiency and preserve your energy all day.
So make sure to nourish your body with the required calories to fuel your workouts and essential proteins to upgrade your muscle gains through lean protein sources and whey protein.
