HEALTHY HABITS | When is the best time of day to train?

I think that today’s culture has bred individuals who are often at times, if not most of the time, looking for the easy way out.

We are too busy keeping up with the demands of our everyday life and hustle culture that we often don’t prioritise time to eat well and move our bodies.

This is a basic necessity, yet is almost always last on the list.

This, I believe, is the main reason people are looking for these magic pills, or quick fixes to achieve health and reach physical goals.

We realise the importance of it, but we aren’t willing to prioritise the time and put in the effort.

There are many aspects that result from this dilemma ... restrictive diets, detoxes and cleanses, diet pills, “magic” workouts that achieve every goal in 15 minutes only (this does not exist by the way).

One other question I have heard thrown about a lot is with regards to the timing of one’s workout.

When in the day is the best time to train to achieve goals, or specific goals. Does training at a certain time enhance my output or results?

There are many who advocate for workouts first thing in the morning.

I am one of those, for no other reason other than that it is then done for the day.

Our days are so busy and too often when the afternoon comes and it’s time to work out we are too busy or too tired to actually follow through with the promise to ourselves to move our bodies.

Other than simply getting it done, there may be some other benefits to training first thing in the morning.

Training in a fasted state may end up burning more calories, or more specifically, fat.

Since your body is in a fasted state, most of your carb reserves (what your body turns to first for energy) are depleted, this in turn results in your body resorting to using your fat reserves for energy for your workout.

A plus when it comes to training in the afternoon is that it generally results in better exercise performance.

This is particularly true for strength and power workouts.

This could be due to the fact that your body temperature peaks later in the afternoon and therefore metabolic functions are enhanced, priming your body for strength and power training.

It is important to remember that training later in the day may hinder your quality of sleep as your session will have increased your heart rate and core body temperature.

If you can only train later in the day, avoid high intensity workouts and rather focus on yoga or low intensity workouts.

A small study conducted in 2022 showed that training first thing in the morning burned more fat and resulted in larger reductions in blood pressure; while evening workouts promoted greater muscle strength and enhanced mood.

So, does it really matter what time of day you exercise?

We see that it may have a slight impact when it comes to achieving specific goals, however, the most important take back is that movement, at any time, is what is important.

It is surprising how many people wonder about this and ask the question on when it is best to exercise.

Of course, as we have discussed, there may be slightly better times to train depending on what your goal is; but ultimately the goal is to train.

Preference and consistency is what it boils down to at the end of the day.

This is most important and yields the best results ... regardless of when you train.

So choose a time that best suits your lifestyle, a time that will enable you to create a healthy habit of regularly moving.

Weekender