When Should You Exercise?

What’s the best time of day to exercise? Morning? Evening? Lunchtime?

The short and simple answer: Whatever time works for you.

For example, if you’re like most people, you may find that you don’t really get a choice – your schedule (and its relative inflexibility) decides when your exercise time is, even if it’s 5:30am.

For those of you who like the morning workout to kickstart your day:

1. It is true that you burn more fat (as a percentage of total energy utilized) when you work out before breakfast (i.e., in a fasted state). But you don’t burn that much more total calories. Additionally, fueling up prior to a weight training session will markedly improve your performance in the gym.

2. Your chances of injuring the intervertebral disks in your spine are greatly increased, so be careful!

For you evening exercisers:

1. You benefit from our inherent Circadian programming. Physical performance seems to peak in the late afternoon/early evening - at least, if you’re a swimmer.

2. Luckily, your sleep is not affected by exercising close to bedtime; at least, not in the long-term.

To summarize: Get your workouts in when you can, regardless of the time. If you feel like you perform better at certain times and you have that choice, then do the right thing.