Morning vs Evening Workout | New Data Changes Things Up

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Referenced Research

One of the ongoing debates in exercise programming is deciding the best time of the day to work out. Long held beliefs sway in favor of exercising in the evening. But does a NEW STUDY entail the same concept, or is a bit more complicated than that? Let's find out!

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0:00 Intro
0:44 Study Breakdown
2:22 Study Results
4:25 Key Takeaway

[coolrockstar]

I was an evening workout person for a lot of years, but lately I just think morning workout hits different. And I feel much more active throughout the day due to morning workouts.

[rayr.]

Morning workouts are great because you get it over with and you have great energy and buzz throughout the day most of the time. Evening workouts are great because I often can workout longer cause I don't have to be at work and the pump and mind muscle connection for me after a full day of eating and hydrating is always better.

[medi_michi]

Short answer: The best time to workout is when you have time🤙

[TungTran-pptx]

To me, it’s when you have the energy to push 100%

[healthyhappyhero]

I always work out in the evening. The reason is because of the limited focus we all have during the day. For me personally it takes a lot of focus to do work on the computer, and to focus on my hobbies like music. I have less focus later in the day. Working out takes little to no focus as I’ve been working out over 15 years, I go on auto pilot and enjoy my workout. If I workout in the morning I start to lose focus on my work and hobbies by mid afternoon.

[ghaeenussalam]

The perfect balance of scientific-ness and plain "plus minus equals" explanation.
Amazing work

[tejas]

Meditation and yoga in the morning.
Exercise and strength training in the evening.

[yuma]

Sweet spot for me is between 12PM-2PM after trying many different times. After 7PM, my CNS is too shot for many of the compound lifts that I usually perform, and before 10AM, my CNS isn't quite warmed up yet. However, whatever works for you is best as long as you get it in.

[stefangeibla]

Also depends a lot on ur job and daily routine. I have a physically demanding job and kids, after a heavy morning workout i have less power left for my daily workload and even less for playing with the kids afterwards. If i work out after a long day i might have a tiny bit less strength for my workout but get a strong energy boost since i am spending some time to care of my health (fitness) in the evening

[scene]

Always did hiit for 15 mins in the morning, it makes me feel alive throughout the day and even ends up helping my actual evening workout because I don't feel lethargic even if i didn't do much that day

[axeldrane]

Here's a different take on about why morning workouts improved my gains in a significant way : there's simply less - and by that i mean MUCH less- people in the gym in the morning. After work, its always the rush hour to the gym. You literally would have to queue to use a bench press, or any other alternative....almost impossible to stick to a consistent training plan, even while trying to keep it flexible. As a result wouldn't train optimally or with the same motivation. In the morning, I have the whole sandbox mostly for myself and the early birds, so I can train however I want to consistently. Also I used to think evening workouts would allow me to blow off some steam for from the day = better workouts. Wrong. I was actually worn out from the day and wouldn't train as hard as when still fresh in the morning. All kindz o gainz since i switched from evening to morning. Just my 2 cents.

[vtheory]

I can definitely see the appeal of morning workouts, but other than on the weekends it just isn’t for me. I prefer evening workouts because:
1.The gym I go to gets busy 2hrs before work and straight after work (I go after dinner when it’s quieter)
2.I don’t like fasted workouts, I perform better when I’m fuelled
3.I don’t get up early enough to be able to catch an early morning workout (better get more sleep)
4.I like working out to destress after work, and it helps me wind down for the night
5.I like how I don’t have to dress up for work etc when I work out in the evening. Just go home, shower and sleep. Also don’t have to carry soaps/makeup etc to the gym and then to the office so commuting is easier

[jameshansen]

Fascinating study, loved the video. I think there (heavily emphasize) MIGHT be one confounding factor not addressed in that paper. The person's circadian rhythm, it is assumed to be the same, but it would be really interesting to do the same study again, but with the male and female groups separated by their own declaration of being 'night owls' or 'early birds'. I'm pretty sure there is a genetic term for this, I just can't remember what it is.
(If anyone is interested, a proposed simple study could be as follows):
- People will be on similar diet for entire duration, perhaps a month?
- People will declare at the beginning and the data be separated into 'early birds' and 'night owls' along with male and female.
- One arm and one leg will be tested in the morning, and the other arm and leg in the evening. For the sake of simplicity, and being an early study, let's just say it is strength only. Perhaps single arm bicep curl, and a tricep exercise, for legs: maybe hamstring curl, and leg/quad curl machine (sorry, forgot its name!).

- Measure change in strength of each and see if there's a difference after the month and patients have recovered with measurements being done at the expected time of training for the limb.
- Possible confounding factors could be: Age, and BF% (not sure how though?), rest (sleep in particular), I'm not sure if rest in the day + sleep at night has more of a recovery effect than just sleep at night... maybe?, job type (sedentary vs. active, active jobs may unintentionally have active recovery and give better results??), probably others too, but can't think what they are at the top of my head.
- Dataset would probably look something like this: So four columns on an excel spreadsheet would be something like: Night owl male, night owl female, early bird male, early bird female. This would then have initial 1RM for each limb at same time they would be exercised as sub columns (so a total of 16 columns for the initial dataset), with x number of rows where each row = one subject. Same data columns for at the end, and measure the percentage increase or decrease. See if there's a difference probably by an ANOVA for early bird male of left limb vs. right limb, and same for all other column types. Expected result would be those that declared themselves to be an early bird would have a greater increase in strength of their early bird tested limbs than their night owl tested limbs. E.g. an early bird male for left bicep curl (morning training) has an average of 14% increase, but the early bird male for right bicep curl (evening training) has an average of a 12% increase (I'm making that data up, it's not real), but you would just do ANOVA of whole dataset of percentage changes in strength.
In all, I'm not sure if it really matters though, truth be told, I only ask about circadian rhythms because I know if I train at night, I can't sleep! So I have to train in the morning, lol.

[richard]

By far, the best time to exercise is the time when you’ll actually exercise.

Whether it’s the morning or evening that works best for you, what matters is getting out there and sweating at some point.

[innocentrage]

Was a morning guy for like a year, got up at 5am and got it done. The good thing was I never missed a day during it, the bad I was tired af at first. Then I got lazy and liked my sleep to much so now I do it after work. Wish I could get back to morning, it was nice to just get it done and not dread it after a long day of work

[stanthebamafan]

I’ve always favored exercising in the afternoon or evening because I have more energy and motivation. If you’re a morning person, that might be different for you. I still believe the most important thing is that you’re going to the gym consistently and training hard.

[themagescorner]

I think it’s easy to figure out why evening workouts are better. Basically most people go through an entire day of meals before an evening workout, and also hydration, so that means your muscles are pretty much ready to do lots of strenuous work. I’ve found that workouts in the afternoon are also favorable. Morning workouts though, unless u have an amazing breakfast and wake up already feeling energetic (not me) often means u won’t be hitting the same weights you would in the evening. Might be good for losing fat, but not weightlifting I reckon.

[alias]

The fact that only women seemed to show the differences makes me think it might be down to factors outside of the studies scope that couldn't be controlled.
The female cycle jumps to mind, which is kind of hard to control in comparison to diet.

But who knows, maybe it's something completely different.

[Alexor]

*Say it. Say it!*
"It depends"
*Yesss*

[ikanmasin]

If we're talking about science, late afternoon/evening would be the best time for extensive/strenuous workout. Why? Because due to nutrition intake+circadian circle goes together. That being said your energy level during late afternoon will be at its peak because the body naturally functions like this. You have already almost completed your daily calorific & protein needs. With strenuous workout you needed to add more intake but this will not burden your natural body functions because your body is an amazing self reliance in term of functioning. So it knows to grow at the right time.