Exercise times are starting to get a lot of attention. More and more people are exercising and asking the technical questions like, “What is the best time to workout?”. Before you ask what are the best times to workout or what each time can do for you, you should ask yourself one important question: “Have I made the commitment to exercising on a regular basis?” If your answer is “Yes”, then the obvious next step is to start exercising. If you aren’t fully committed to exercising, then it won’t matter when you work out, because you aren’t going to get the full benefits of a consistent, well-planned fitness program.
Make the decision, commit to working out, and you will have the freedom to discover what each time can do for you. Working out at any point during the day is better than not working out at all. If you really want to nail down what each specific part of the day can do for you, you have to think about what time of the day will give you the best opportunity to exercise.
Morning workouts can be a great way to jump-start your day and get your metabolism geared up. You should experiment with working out on an empty stomach and working out with after a small nutritious breakfast has digested. You should feel different in each scenario, and it depends on how much glycogen you have stored from the previous evening whether working out on an empty stomach will benefit you more than exercising with some food in your belly. If you have plenty of stored fat, working out on an empty stomach can really target fat, because the energy you are expending has to be taken from some part of your body. If you find yourself sluggish and weak in the morning during workouts, try eating some fruit or whole grains first. Either way, you will need to eat a breakfast or recovery meal after the workout.
Exercising in between the morning and evening can be a great time to get excellent benefits. The reason lies in the fact that you will have a full storage of glycogen at your disposal in the late morning and afternoon. You’ve eaten a couple of meals by this point, or at least had a meal (hopefully!) and a snack.
If you work long hours and feel tired when you come home, working out in the evening may not be the best use of your exercise time. If the evening is your only available time, then you will have to make it work. There is nothing wrong with exercising at night, but you have to be careful what type of workout you perform. You may think anything that really gets your heart rate up and works you hard would tire you out to the point of exhaustion. On the contrary, the added adrenaline produced by your body could alter your natural sleep hormones and make it difficult to fall asleep, thus disturbing your authentic sleep cycle. You need sleep to recover. If you are a night owl and love working out at night, be sure to give yourself ample time before you go to sleep. This will also help you get the necessary protein and other nutrients needed to recover from your workout. Exercising at night can have benefits if you find you are able to sleep with no problems. Everybody is different, and everyone’s body responds physiologically to exercise in their own unique way. If you find you get better results working out at night, by all means do it!
