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What’s The Best Time Of Day To Workout?
by Shin Ohtake on Thursday, November 05, 2009 • 39 Comments
Will you get better results if you workout in the morning or the afternoon? Some say exercising in the morning forces your body to utilize fat as the energy source, so it’s the best time to workout if you want optimum fat loss. Others say your lean muscle building and fat loss hormones peak in the afternoon, so if you want a better body you’d better workout later in the day. So which is it, AM or PM?
Before we start talking times, let’s quickly go over how your biological clock works. Circadian rhythm is your internal clock. It follows a natural cycle and greatly influences how you feel, how you sleep, what you crave and how much energy you have. Your natural cycle controls your body’s physiological functions by dictating the timing, quantity, and quality of hormones and neurotransmitters it produces. In a nutshell, your circadian rhythm helps create balance in your body for optimum functioning. When things are balanced and working properly, you’ll sleep well and wake up when it’s light and fall asleep when it’s dark. As your body wakes up, it starts to produce the necessary hormones such as cortisol and serotonin to get your blood pressure up, raise your core body temperature, and get you mentally alert and physically ready to start the day. As the evening approaches and the sun sets, your body naturally starts to wind down and produces hormones such as melatonin and other neurotransmitters that allow your body to slow down, decrease blood pressure, and lower your core body temperature so you can eventually fall asleep. Sounds like a dream right? When was the last time your day went like that?
The problem is that many of us are not in sync with our natural circadian rhythm and this causes our internal functions to be completely discombobulated. This can cause many health problems like depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, PMS, insomnia and…yep, you guessed it—even weight gain.
What causes you to be out of sync with your own internal clock?
In order for you to best understand circadian rhythm and it’s effect on your body, it’s important to take a closer look into what makes your internal clock tick.
The study of circadian rhythm, also know as chronobiology, has been around since the 19th century. But it wasn’t until Dr. Franz Halberg (a scientist from the University of Minnesota) discovered that blood count varied according to a strict rhythm throughout the day, that the study of circadian rhythm started to garner attention from the scientific and medical community. Many studies have been done since then to learn more about the effects it has on our body, including several key studies done in the 1980’s. These studies placed people in isolated environments without any outside influences or cues, such as daylight and time. The studies revealed that human internal clock is actually longer than twenty four hours.
But if our internal clock is longer than 24 hours and our day is only 24 hours long—isn’t it just a matter of time before we’re all out of sync with our natural cycle?
No one really knows why our internal clock (without any external cues) is longer than twenty four hours…at least not yet. But fortunately, nature has natural “time markers” that keep our internal clocks in tune with the length of the day. In the field of chronobiology, these markers have been given the term zeitgebers, which is a German word that means “time givers”. The most natural zeitgeber, of course, is the sun—but modern lifestyle has diminished it’s importance and has instead shifted our reliance on other artificial cues such as your alarm clock, morning rituals, daily activities like meal times, working hours, and evening cues like going out and watching TV. All loosely regimented types of activities that have become habitual in nature.
But this is where many of us get into trouble…our modern life doesn’t always allow for “regular” schedules. In fact, more and more we work longer hours, travel more, sleep less, eat at odd hours or even skip meals all together and…working out? Who has time for that?! (*wink*)
We are creatures of habit for a reason. Your body has it’s own internal cycle and since that cycle is responsible for secreting hormones and neurotransmitters, you can imagine the havoc it creates on your body when your cycle gets out of whack. Your body loses it’s bearings and doesn’t know when to produce the right hormones or how much to produce. It’s kind of like a sailboat being lost at sea—you’re aimlessly floating whichever way the wind takes you…
But not all is lost.
Even though many of our hormones exhibit circadian effects, there’s strong evidence that some can be produced and enhanced independent of time. Lucky for us the two most important hormones - testosterone and GH - that affect your body in terms of getting lean, tight and fit, are such hormones.
Let’s take a look at these two hormones:
Testosterone is a male sex hormone, and hence is much more prevalent in men. But it is vital to building lean muscle for both men and women. Although testosterone has some circadian effects - some state that it’s levels peak between 5:00-9:00 AM, while others state that it peaks between 3 and 11 hours after awakening. Testosterone can also be enhanced through high intensity training. No matter the time, high intensity exercises will always produce an influx of testosterone, allowing you to build more lean muscle - and that means more fat-burning too.
Growth Hormone (GH) is one of the most important hormones when it comes to your body transformation. It enhances protein synthesis which builds muscle and lipolysis which burns fat and it also helps inhibit glucose uptake which is a major contributor for gaining belly fat. Studies show that GH does not have strong circadian effects, but it does depend on getting enough sleep—in fact your GH is most effective during sleep! Depriving yourself of enough sleep is not only effecting your level of energy and general mental alertness the next day, it’s also keeping you fat. Other than sleep, the most potent GH enhancer is exercise. And as with testosterone, the most effective type is short, high intensity exercise. Again, irrespective of time, if you’re working out with high intensity, you’re producing increased amounts of GH, enabling you to effectively burn fat MUCH faster than you can with isolated exercises or steady-state cardio.
In the end, the best solution to a healthy, lean, and fit body, is to come up with a regular schedule and stick to it. Keeping a regular schedule is far more important than being concerned with whether you workout in the morning or afternoon. Remember, your natural cycle is governed by a combination of circadian rhythm and habitual external cues (ie. zeitgebers) that form your daily life, so try your absolute best to:
- Eat at at regular times and keep your junk food (ie. refined sugar and other empty calories) intake to a minimum. Keep your diet healthy, well balanced, and consistent.
- Wake up and go to bed at consistent times and get enough sleep so you can maximize your body’s fat burning hormones, amongst other important hormones and neurotransmitters to ensure optimum health.
- Workout regularly and at consistent times and include high intensity training into your fitness regimen. If you aren’t familiar with high intensity workouts, check out my MAX Workouts program. The workouts are short, intense, and optimized to help your body elicit as much favorable fat burning and lean muscle building hormones as possible.
Do you have a consistent schedule? Have you found that sticking to a regular schedule has had a positive effect on your physical and mental well-being? I’d love to hear from you, so please post your comments below.
About The Author
Shin Ohtake is a widely recognized strength coach and fitness & fat-loss expert. His unconventional, no-nonsense approach to getting fit has made him the go-to source for fitness enthusiasts and trainers alike. Shin is also the author of the world famous, MAX Workouts book, which has transformed and reshaped the bodies of thousands of people across the globe - without requiring hours in the gym. To learn more about how MAX Workouts can help you achieve your fitness goals, visit maxworkouts.com.
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39 Comments
Posted by Mazda2001 on 11/05 at 09:35 AM
Hello I have been through all the ups and downs .
I use to work out every day during my lunch hour lifting and bikeing and running. Then the problems with shin splints and exercise induced injurys forced me to find a better solution. I bought a eliptical and 100 pounds of weights. now i lift three times a week, ride my stationary bike 30 min and use the eliptical three to four times a week combined with a good meal plan.
I have lost 38 pounds so far. I am restricted to lifting 30 pounds due to a motorcycle wreck so i do 3 sets of chin,curls and over my head.
Posted by Cheryl on 11/05 at 09:45 AM
I love to sleep so I sleep in the mornings as long as I can before it’s time to get ready for work. I have a normal schedule of working out six days a week. Four of those days are through the week and are right after work. Saturdays is at noon and Sundays at 11 AM. This is what works for me. After my workouts I’m exhausted and I don’t think I could go into work and be worth a damn if I worked out in the morning. I tried working out a noon once and go back to work….I won’t do that again. With high-intensity workouts, I’m spent after a workout…as I should be if done right.
Posted by lorenzo on 11/05 at 09:54 AM
I usually work out after work. During the week it mostly consists of wheights and some boxing excercises (depending on how I feel will be 3 to 4 days out of the 5 and variating one day weights the other boxing, but not every week the same days…). During the weekends I usually combine it with cardio like bike riding or running and this in the morning. I also bike to work in any season. Especially during fall season whith heavy winds I find this is also a good form of cardio…
Posted by Debbie on 11/05 at 10:11 AM
When I get out of my routine with respect to exercising and diet, everything falls apart. I get cranky, put on weight, drink more, don’t sleep and an overall feeling of spiraling downward into a big mess. Everything you say is true - consistency and balance is the key. AND, it’s really true that “It doesn’t matter that you get off track, we all do, what REALLY matters is how long it takes for you to get back on!”
Posted by Barry Segal on 11/05 at 10:17 AM
Truth be told, I work out when I can and I’ve found little difference in energy, motivation and effectiveness, regardless of the hour of day or night. I use a local gym and my choice of workout time is more affected by how crowded the site is with other exercisers than anything else.—-Barry, Marin County CA
Posted by Shirley Raboloko on 11/05 at 10:19 AM
i workout in the afternoon, because of my work schedule and i love working out in the afternoon it relaxes my mind and soul.
Posted by Doug White on 11/05 at 11:12 AM
That is interesting, because I feel so much better both physically and mentally when I am on a schedule. This article really explains why.
Posted by Leslie on 11/05 at 11:20 AM
Hi Shin,
I really enjoy your articles. They’re informative and well-written.
I read recently in a book by Tom Venuto that if your progress plateaus, one of the things you can try changing is the time of day that you work out. Just another way of trying to challenge your body by mixing things up and doing the unexpected.
For me, it is critically important that my diet and sleep are consistent so that I have the energy for intense workouts. My preference is morning workouts.
Posted by Mark on 11/05 at 11:51 AM
I can definately relate to Debbie’s comments regarding getting out of the regular routine.
I do 12 hour shifts on an offshore rig for 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off which involves doing nightshift as well. This really takes its toll on maintaining motivation and consistency.
I find once I get on a roll, nothing can stop me but if I miss a workout or two the diet and exercise go out the window…
Despite this, I’m getting awesome results from doing MAX Workouts over the past 6 months but would welcome any tips on how to be consistent.
Posted by Alma on 11/05 at 11:56 AM
My best workouts are before 12 noon. I find that I’m still revived from my rest, early enough before calorie deficit occurs (sometimes I miss a meal at work and pay for it during PM workouts by tanking out) and the gym is still empty.
Posted by Agnetha on 11/05 at 11:58 AM
This was a very interesting article, especially as I have an imbalance in my hormonal system. My problem is that I suffer from insomnia even though I stick to a very strict schedule for meals, sleep and exercise. And I can assure you that it is absolutely impossible to lose any body fat when you don’t sleep properly. I do my workout early in the evening 3 times/week, a yoga session and a power-walk in the morning before breakfast. I stick to this schedule, although I haven’t slept the night before and usually I get more energy after training.
Posted by Linda E. Paxton on 11/05 at 12:16 PM
Hi Shin, I just started trying to be consistent with my excercise. I find that a walk/run for just 20 minutes wakes me up and gives me the extra energy I need to go through out my day. I should likely do more but I just finished having the flu. So I am back at the baby steps in excercising. Its all about eating sleeping and physical fitness is what a balanced life is about. Thanks for the article.
Very interesting.
Linda Paxton:)
Posted by john lincs on 11/05 at 12:20 PM
I usually train about 4:30 or 5:00 PM. The natural light and weather varies a lot in the UK between summer and winter, due to some extent to the alteration of clocks in Spring and Fall; at this time of year neither an early morning workout nor an evening one is inviting. What I do is to fit workouts in with mealtimes: main training sessions are timed as stated though sometimes I do extra cardio mid morning, and I’ve noticed I feel better after training at this time. Whatever you choose, it has to be livable, and maintainable, in the long term, as Debbies’ comments indicate.
Posted by Sou on 11/05 at 12:21 PM
I like to work out in the afternoon, i feel more vivid, i tried in the morning but my muscles are a bit lazy, so i do much much more better in the afternoon, and when i stick to a schedule my body and my spirit are extremely comfortable, but the problem is that i can’t stick all the time,and when i get lazy i stay lazy for a long time and i need a great push to get back to exercise.
Posted by Dennis on 11/05 at 12:58 PM
I like to workout anytime of the day. I was wondering about the best times to workout thanks for the info. I am new to bodybuilding. I sprained my ankle, I haven’t been able to work out for a week now and I just got the flu so I am staying at home till I feel better.
Posted by Cory Bryan on 11/05 at 01:05 PM
I believe that everyone is different and i say that it depends on what you feel better about. If you feel better in the a.m. work out, and if you feel better in the p.m. workout then. Your not going to find two identical body types, everyones body is different so find what you are comfortable with and stick with that, and you will see results either way. Believing is one way to stay confident and confidence is POWER!
Posted by Mike on 11/05 at 03:25 PM
I prefer to workout about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. By then I have plenty of carb’s and protein in my body and I’m ready to tear it up.
Posted by Robert P Ruschak on 11/05 at 03:43 PM
I do my resistance workouts in the AM T-Th-Sat. I power walk in the PM M-W-Fri. Since I’ve passed the half century mark I’ve had to adjust the way I workout. Interestingly a one set HIT works the best. This has come from a lot of trial and error. There isn’t much information on working out for us over 50 types, but I recently read Steve Reeves Building the Classic Physique the Natural Way and he has a chapter for us O50’s. He also recommends a one set 12-15 rep full body workout. I know Penn State’s football team has gone to one set workouts also. Interesting.
Posted by Tonia Zaloumis on 11/05 at 04:10 PM
Hi Shin
hope all well with you. I definitely find working out in the evenings works for me - i have more energy to work out hard and fast and i give it everything i ve got - i guess also that working out in the evening gives me the time to really psyche myself out for my workout out, hence by the time am finished. am on a high.
I have been noticing that am maintaining my weight and my husband says am looking alot more toned, but personally i feel that i have not yet achieved the look i want ie looking defined on my quads, upper body etc. so i dont know what more ishould be or not be doing… regarding increasing the weights week by week. am just not able to as have not gained the strength. i do use the lower end of the weights that you recommend for women, and also do the interval training whcih i really enjoy. please advise me on what more i could be doing.
thanks Tonia
Posted by Majid on 11/05 at 08:35 PM
Amen shin! I workout first thing in the A.M.(5:00 A.M.). And I to feel that keeping a schedule for yourself is the key to not only a great workout, but a better way of life as well.Going to bed and waking up at the same time as often as possiable is what works best for me.
Posted by Eileen on 11/06 at 12:09 AM
Hi Shin
I do my workouts in the early am before heading to work - it gets me going knowing that I’ve already “achieved” something and I stay upbeat. But I’ve tried pm workouts too - I find that I can lift heavier and last longer during cardio. But the funny thing is - I only changed my body shape after switching to my am routine. Am happy but I don’t get it - any theories?
Posted by carl on 11/06 at 12:44 AM
So true i have knowen this for a long time but not meny would agree. So we are in to it. My son and i will keep you informed, we on day 5, 85 to go and so on thanks for the confirmation
Posted by George Allen on 11/06 at 04:43 AM
For me the best time is the morning time. So i wake up early dand do my work out. It helps me stay fit and i feel really relax whiling doing my work.So morning is the time when i do my workout.
Posted by Peter on 11/06 at 04:49 AM
Hi Shin,
I’ve always worked out in the evening. This is mainly due to work and the fact that I’m not a morning person. I take a long time to waken properly in the early mornings. I love my sleep and am a slow waker. To be honest I’ve never even tried to workout in the morning. Although I did for a while try doing cardio in the morning - going for a run - but this didn’t really work for me.
I’m so enjoying the max workout program. I’m into my 5th week now and although I still have quite a bit of a stomach I feel that I’m slowly getting to where I want to be. I’ve lost all the surface fat around my midrift (no flab) but guess there is still a lot of deep seated fat below the ab muscles?
Thanks for all the interesting articles.
Posted by Peter on 11/06 at 04:52 AM
Hey Shin,
How about an article on men over 50 and why it’s so difficult for them to loose abdominal fat, especially that fat seated deep underneath the ab muscles?
Peter.
Posted by bj on 11/06 at 10:26 AM
i have a flexible work schedule so i tend to work around it. i’m normally at my best in the early afternoon from 1-3pm and the gym is always empty and serene at that time (just he way i like it). as long as i workout 3-4 times a week i feel strong, i sleep well and the pounds don’t come back on. consistency in terms of the # of days worked out is the key for me
Posted by Lorraine on 11/06 at 02:20 PM
I stick to a strict diet and exercise routine, i start my well planned routine on a monday, if my routine is changed i feel aggitated and thrown off track, I find this has helped me to stick to my ideal body weight of 54kg for over a year after loosing half my bodyweight I carried round with me for 12 years. When i go on holiday it throws me off routine and takes about 3-4 weeks before i can get back into a routine. So routine is good :~)
Posted by Charles on 11/06 at 10:57 PM
I try and do atleast some core exercises both morning and night and then my intense training in the evening.
Posted by odinga on 11/08 at 12:39 AM
i try to work out 2 times everyday…..morning and night….it has been a habit for me.i cant eat without going for excise everyday but my best time for excise is morning becos it helps me to be smart all through the day
Posted by Cat on 11/09 at 08:40 AM
With myself, I personally loved to work out in the morning; I’d stretch for thirty minutes and then lift ways, secreting so many hormones and endorphins throughout my system that it left me in a good mood all day. It also got some of the exercise out of the way for more me (since I would then walk for two hours after School if I can help it). I still try to do a similar thing now, however, I want to go to a Gym now to take better advantage of their equipment.
There’s also the fact it was guranteed I’d be sweating buckets after I worked out, which meant I had to take a shower which takes a long time and would have to blow dry my hair… not fun stuff. xD (Unforunately, in this society, it is common for the female population to care about such things… I see it as a good/bad transformation for myself, personally… ).
I’m still working out a Schedule to work out every day; unforunately I probably won’t get around to it till 6 pm due to friends, and I am tired by 20:00. However, one thing I know is that I’m a strong confident girl and I will work out every day no matter what!
Posted by cris on 11/09 at 02:54 PM
In summer I exercise at 6 in the morning because is too hot and I work harder when is cold, but in the rest of the year I exercise in the afternoon.
When is cold outside I like to sleep a lot.
Posted by Gert on 11/10 at 06:36 AM
How do you get a regular schedule if you are a shift worker? What is the best way for a shift worker to exercise?
Posted by dennis on 11/11 at 04:12 PM
it is the mornings,after i get up.the bad thing is dr.pepper.i know but i love it.afterwards its two eggs and toast.
Posted by Deon Perry on 11/12 at 03:28 AM
I always do my workout in the evening after coming back from my office.It relaxes me a lot after my whole days of stressful work.I have made it a habit that i will do my workout daily without miss.
Posted by gift on 11/12 at 07:13 AM
Shin
Well I used to be confused about when to exercise I tried the morning rout and found it was risky in my neighbourhood to take a morning jog(snakes) then in the afternoon I became comfortable with it. In such a way that my body got use to this rout after a work out followed by a warm bath I heard to bed like a baby and wake up the next morning at the same time everyday, if I happen to skip more than three days workout I have trouble sleeping and I shall be late for work the next day.
Posted by neotsikas on 11/22 at 10:34 AM
Shin
I have a regular shcedule (do your awesome maxworkouts, eat healthy and sleep at more or less the same time each day) and needless to say, I am feeling GEART ALL THE TIME! You are 100% correct. The article is awesome 
Posted by Angela on 12/07 at 11:39 AM
I definitely have to get my workout done in the mornings or it doesn’t get done. At least that way I get to do what I want the rest of the day knowing I already got it in.
Posted by Rumana on 12/09 at 05:14 AM
Nice Post
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Posted by Tom on 11/05 at 09:35 AM
Shin,
Definitely an am exerciser. I followed the gurus’ advice many years ago about the increased body fat burn in the am. Whether that is true or not, I am now in the “habit; or my internal clock” expcets me to be in the gym at 6:00am doing your killer workouts! I feel better during the day and it has changed the way in which I prioritze other activities in my day.
Thanks…Tom