The best time to the gym may surprise you. Most people don’t think about the optimal time to exercise. Scheduling your workouts at the right times can gradually increase the benefits you reap.
The idea that there might even be an optimal time – one at which the human body is biologically susceptible to doing more work, burning more fat, and building more muscle – rarely occurs to people.
Worse still, when the subject comes up, the answer you’ll usually hear is that morning workouts are optimal because they burn more fat. However, research doesn’t fully support that. As far as strength training is concerned, a growing body of research suggests that evening training blows morning training out of the water.
The building of muscle tissue at a later time of day is evolutionarily determined. Our muscle anabolic signals are simply stronger later in the day.
The argument that morning workouts are superior for fat loss is that because your glycogen stores are empty in the morning, you burn more fat during a morning workout. And this is true – morning workouts burn more fat acutely for that reason.
That said, there are several more specific mechanisms that likely explain the better results of weightlifting later in the day.
TESTOSTERONE AND CORTISOL
We have a better hormonal environment later in the day.
In research, the testosterone/cortisol ratio is often used as a marker for exercise recovery and anabolic potential. The higher it is, the more ready your body is to build muscle.
Testosterone is a sex hormone that stimulates muscle growth, among other things, such as libido and body hair growth. While it’s considered the “male sex hormone,” women also have testosterone, and what follows seems to apply equally to women as to men.
You may know cortisol as the body’s main “stress hormone.” Along with markers of systemic inflammation, it’s a good overall measure of how much stress (both physical and psychological) and damage the body is dealing with.
After exercise, testosterone goes down and cortisol goes up. Generally, the faster they recover, the more muscles you’ll gain. The higher the testosterone and the lower the cortisol, the more muscles you’ll get.
Testosterone production rises during sleep, peaks after midnight, and declines most of the day, reaching a low point in the early evening.
Cortisol follows a different pattern – it slowly rises in the morning after waking up and declines throughout the day.
Put these two patterns together, and your testosterone/cortisol ratio is highest when you sleep and is higher in the late evening than earlier in the day.
Other anabolic hormones, including insulin-like growth factor, also appear to be higher later in the day.
Because high levels of anabolic hormones and low levels of cortisol are associated with more muscle growth and better exercise recovery, this supports hitting the weights later in the day.
You could even argue that it supports working out right before bedtime; however, remember that these hormone levels are arguably more important after exercise than during exercise. And of course, there are other factors to consider.
BODY TEMPERATURE
The core body temperature is also higher later in the day and loosens up the muscles. The truth is that human body temperature varies both among individuals and depending on the times of day. Human body temperature is lowest in the late evening, rises rapidly after awakening, and peaks in the early evening. This is important because body temperature correlates with training performance.
Moreover, most people will achieve higher muscle activation levels in the evening compared to the morning. This means they can use more of their muscle fibers – and fatigue – making workouts more productive. Accordingly, people are stronger in the late afternoon and early evening. Higher body temperatures also loosen up the muscles, allowing for more flexibility. Greater elasticity may partly account for the increase in power later in the day.
TIMING
This part is a bit more speculative, but nutrient and sleep timing can also play a role here. It is known that both nutrition and sleep are crucial for recovering from exercise – so could it be important that they come soon after your workout?
NUTRITION
There is clearly an anabolic window after exercise in which muscles can take up and use more protein. How important this window is, and how long it lasts, is widely debated, but studies tend to find more muscle growth when a certain effort is made to consume protein within a few hours after exercise
SLEEP
As for sleep, not getting enough of it impairs muscle growth. As far as we know, studies have not yet looked at how soon after a workout you should go to sleep, but there may be a similar post-workout window here, where you want to sleep relatively soon after your workout to recover, as sleep improves protein synthesis and muscle anabolic signaling.
In short, exercising in the late afternoon or early evening can be partially optimal because it allows you to go to sleep relatively soon after your workout while still having enough time for one or two good meals before bedtime. That is, the timing allows you to optimally satisfy both the need for nutrition after exercise and the need for sleep after exercise.
BIOLOGICAL CLOCK
An optimal workout time is somewhere between 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm. However, this is not absolute.
In this case, timing is important with respect to your biological clock; the exact time of day is not really the issue here. Most people wake up between 6-9 am and go to sleep around 10:00 pm – 12:00 am. For most people, the best workout time is eight to twelve hours after waking up.
You should do what fits your schedule. If you are an “early bird,” then a workout time of about 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm will yield the best results. If you are a night owl, then a workout between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm will yield more benefits in your results.
STRESS
Your stress levels have a huge impact on your ability to recover from exercise – the difference between high and low stress levels can easily equate to a twofold difference in recovery capacity and muscle-building potential.
In short, exercising in the late afternoon or early evening can be partially optimal because it allows you to go to sleep relatively soon after your workout while still having enough time for one or two good meals before bedtime. That is, the timing allows you to optimally satisfy both the need for nutrition after exercise and the need for sleep after exercise. Your stress levels have a huge impact on your ability to recover from exercise – the difference between high and low stress levels can easily equate to a twofold difference in recovery capacity and muscle-building potential.
You can program yourself. Over time, things you do every day become habits that you do automatically, without thinking.
YOU CAN PROGRAMM YOURSELF
Over time, things you do at the same time every day become entangled in your circadian rhythm. You become tired before your typical bedtime. You crave the right nutrition. And thankfully, your energy levels will adjust, in anticipation of your daily workout. Whatever time of day you exercise, do it at the same time every day to get caught up in that training time. If you exercise outside of optimal hours, also exercise at least 4 days a week to enhance the immersive effect. If you experience a lot of work-related stress and have no energy at the end of the workday, exercise during lunch. So, continue to prioritize good sleep and recovery by simply adjusting your own chronological clock to the circadian rhythm.
SOURCE:”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.863224/full