28/10/2022
The best time of day to do your workouts
based on your fitness goals⭐️
Using the latest science on muscle clocks, the natural changes that occur to your body during each day and their timing, we break down the best time of day to do your workouts based on your goals.
⭐️My goal is to lose weight, so what is the best time of day to work out?
Fat utilisation tends to be greatest in the late morning. This is important and suggests that if losing weight is your primary health and fitness goal, you should exercise at around 10am or 11am.
⭐️My goal is to increase my cardiovascular fitness, so what is the best time of day to work out?
Just like fat utilisation, oxygen uptake for low- to moderate-intensity exercise appears to be optimised in the mid to late morning. However, if you are doing high-intensity training (HIT), there is not a preference for time of day for oxygen consumption. Therefore, if you are in good enough health for HIT and enjoy doing it, the body has been conditioned to respond optimally regardless of time of day.
⭐️My goal is to improve my overall health, so what is the best time to work out?
This is where muscle clocks come in. Muscle clocks work with all your biological clocks like the master
clock in the brain and other system clocks like the liver to synchronise your body and all its systems
for optimal functioning. Muscle clocks have the greatest response to exercise in the morning; therefore, the best time of day to work out for general health is during the morning.
⭐️My goal is to manage type II diabetes, so what time of day is best to work out?
Muscle clocks synchronise the muscles to the other body systems and this is important to help manage metabolic disease like diabetes. Because muscle clocks tend to respond best in the late
morning and fat utilisation is also optimised at that time, the suggestion is that people with diabetes exercise in the late morning.
⭐️My goal is to improve muscle strength and power, so what time of day is the best to work out?
Muscle pliability or the ability of a muscle to stretch is greatest from 4pm to 6pm; therefore, muscle strength and power outcomes are best between these times and the recommended time of day to do resistance training is 4pm to 6pm.
⭐️What about youth and young adults? Are there any special considerations?
In a June 2022 study on people aged 17-21, time of day affected motor co-ordination in general.
Specifically, motor ability, agility and muscle strength were best from noon to late in the afternoon.
Therefore, when thinking about young people and both safety and performance during exercise, the best time of day to exercise is from noon to 4pm/6pm.
Source: BMA/Fit/ ProStudies
