Science says the best time of day to exercise
Claire Zulkey, a 44-year-old freelance writer in the Chicago area, has a solid relationship. morning routine: She takes her children to school, turns on the TV to watch her favorite show, and gets active with a full-body workout. Once completed, Zulkey shower head and job stability.
Meghan Cully, on the other hand, works all day before hitting the gym on the way home. The 32-year-old graphic designer from Maryland describes himself as a “slow starter” in the morning and finds it difficult to get moving in the early morning.
Everyone works out, but is one time better than another?
Consider your fitness goals
ONE small study of Skidmore College examined the benefits of morning versus evening exercise for both women and men. Paul J. Arciero, PhD, professor in the department of physiological sciences and human health at Skidmore, led the study.
“We asked the groups to follow the same multimodal routine, randomly dividing into evening and morning groups,” he said. “We found that women and men responded differently to different types of exercise depending on the time of day, which surprised us.”
Research reveals that for women who want to lower blood pressure or lose belly fat, morning exercise has the best effect. Women who are striving to increase muscle, endurance or overall body shape Improve mood You should consider exercising in the evening.
For male participants, the findings were somewhat different: Evening exercise reduced blood pressure, heart disease risk and feelings of fatigue, while similar to women, they burned more fat when exercising in the morning. To understand the reasons behind the results, further research is needed.
Arciero says it may be ideal to tailor your workout to the time of day when you can get the most out of it. “If you’re female, you may want to do cardio in the morning and strength training in the evening,” he says.
Morning birds and night owls
“For many people, [the best time to exercise] will depend on their chronotype,” says Jennifer J. Heisz, PhD, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University and author of the book. Exercise your body, heal your mind.
Chronotype is your body’s natural tendency to want to sleep at a certain time – it determines whether you are a night owl or a night owl. early birds. For the 25% of the population who consider themselves night owls, supplementing with both is enough Sleep and getting enough exercise can be difficult, Heisz says.
“Exercising at night can sometimes challenge social norms,” she explains. “Sure, you can stay up until midnight and exercise at night, but if you have to leave the house at 7 a.m. the next morning, you won’t get enough sleep.”
Sleep – which gives your body the time it needs to recover and reap the benefits of exercise – should always be a top priority when exercising. Regardless of the research on the benefits of certain exercises at specific times of the day, your results will be diminished if you don’t spend enough time sleeping.
How to vary your workout time
If your goal is to change your routine to comply with Arciero’s findings regarding the time of day you exercise, says Heisz, or simply make exercising more convenient even when it runs against your chronotype, it is possible.
“For example, if you want to switch to a morning routine, the good news is that both sunlight and exercise can reset your biological signals,” she says. “Put them together by exercising outdoors in the sunshine and it will have a powerful effect.”
For older adults, who tend to sometimes wake up too early and not be able to get back to sleep, the desired change may be evening exercise. “This can help you fall asleep later and stay asleep longer,” says Heisz.
If you’re worried that working out at night will affect your ability to fall asleep, switch your workout to gentler forms of exercise, like yoga. Avoid vigorous exercise like running, which can increase your heart rate and make it harder for you to relax.
For evening exerciser Cully, the trick is to workout on the way home from work, far enough away from bedtime so as not to interfere with her sleep. “If I go home first, I probably won’t exercise,” she admits. “But then I have the whole evening to relax.”
According to Arciero, no matter when you prefer to exercise, the most important thing is to take a multimodal approach. For his research, Arciero developed a program that does just that, called RISE—resistance training, sprint interval training, stretching and endurance training. “We found that when doing each type of exercise once a week, compliance was higher and so were the benefits,” he explains.
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