Does It Matter When I Exercise?
For years, I trudged to the gym at 5 a.m., even before sunrise and before the New York City garbage trucks began their daily commute to work. In the end, due to the need to sleep, I changed my routine to night workouts – and suddenly I felt stronger and faster.
Does it matter when you exercise? Well, that’s believable truth: time is important, but more so because it is related to your own schedule (and goals), as opposed to morning workouts that are objectively better or worse than the night training. And one factor can easily affect another – if you don’t sleep well, it can affect your performance, which can affect your diet, and so on and so forth; Until now, there are a few things you should keep in mind the next time you decide to set an early alarm.
Evening Workouts May Be Better For Performance
In terms of actual results, it is true that in a number of endurance sports such as swimming , athletes tended to do their best in the afternoon or evening rather than in their morning workouts. According to Black Dirksen, physical therapist, strength and conditioning specialist at Bespoke Treatments and founder of Nightcap Training , your body has a lower core temperature in the morning, which can affect your ability to do some sports.
A 2017 study of 10 NCAA Division 1 basketball players similarly found improved performance in the evening; this was measured based on the subjects’ ability to jump adequately over a period of time.
There are not many studies that directly track the results of strength training, but two separate studies in Finland, which followed groups of young people for 10 weeks (in particular, a very short period) and six months, did find that those who trained in the evening, there was a greater increase in muscle mass.
However, as Vice writes, a lot of it depends on your own schedule and adaptability. If you just can’t recuperate after work, you may not need to change your schedule.
Subsequent exercise won’t necessarily affect your ability to sleep, but your diet may be a factor.
In a recent analysis of 23 related studies, researchers from Switzerland stated that physical activity does not cause sleep problems – unless you engage in intense late-night workouts like HIIT less than an hour before bed. “… the subjects were unable to recover enough an hour before going to bed,” writes Science Daily . “Their hearts were still beating more than 20 beats per minute faster than their resting heart rate.”
What about the opposite? Will not getting enough sleep affect your ability to exercise? As we wrote earlier , not getting enough sleep or not getting enough sleep can slow you down, and recent research has shown that it can decrease strength. I would say that when you don’t get enough sleep, you may feel more tired at the gym after a long day at work than in the morning. For this reason, your morning workout can be useful for a quick burst of energy.
Some of us also eat specifically after an evening workout, and a 2015 study found that eating late can negatively affect sleep quality. If you don’t sleep well due to eating late, it could affect your next workout and end up in a terrible cycle that I have experienced over and over again. Personally, I tend to sleep poorly after eating a heavy post workout meal, so I try to limit myself as much as possible (or skip it altogether).
Choose a workout that fits your schedule
But let’s put science aside for a while. Dirksen mentions that night training can be difficult for you if you just can’t find the time or motivation after a long day at work.
If you get up early, you may also need to warm up more than during the day. In the morning, your cardiovascular system is depressed, and your heart rate and blood pressure are at the lowest levels you will find throughout the day, Dirksen said. “If you are doing light aerobic work, it’s not such a big problem,” he said. “But if you have an important workout, you need to make sure you warm up properly to get the most out of your workout.”
But regardless of time, consistency is important, says Dirksen. “Whether it’s morning or night, what you’re going to do most often will be best for you.”
In other words: it really depends on you. Daytime and nighttime workouts have their own benefits, as do morning workouts.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter when you choose a workout, if you choose a workout at all and calculate it according to your own schedule. If you just can’t wake up at 6am, fuck it: head to the gym after work. But if you are an early riser, it may be time for you to consider changing it – you might benefit from it.