I was an evening workout person for a lot of years, but lately I just think morning workout hits different. And I feel much more active throughout the day due to morning workouts.
@@ryn_2396 I'm an extremely lazy person in general. And the days I don't workout, I feel very sleepy and lazy throughout the day, at this point working out has become essential for me to stay active throughout 😭 Used to be an evening/night workout person long ago, enjoyed that too until it lasted
Morning workouts are great because you get it over with and you have great energy and buzz throughout the day most of the time. Evening workouts are great because I often can workout longer cause I don't have to be at work and the pump and mind muscle connection for me after a full day of eating and hydrating is always better.
Morning workouts are great because I can dream about doing them while sleeping in bed. I have no idea how people have the motivation to wake up 1 hour earlier just to work out.
This is underestimated. I’d go further to say workout when you feel like it. Your body will dictate when you should get up, what workout to do, when and what to eat, when to have sex, when to drink, etc. But most people are so out of sync with their inner voice and the environment that they can’t hear shit, so they need apps, trainers and plans.
I always work out in the evening. The reason is because of the limited focus we all have during the day. For me personally it takes a lot of focus to do work on the computer, and to focus on my hobbies like music. I have less focus later in the day. Working out takes little to no focus as I’ve been working out over 15 years, I go on auto pilot and enjoy my workout. If I workout in the morning I start to lose focus on my work and hobbies by mid afternoon.
Sweet spot for me is between 12PM-2PM after trying many different times. After 7PM, my CNS is too shot for many of the compound lifts that I usually perform, and before 10AM, my CNS isn't quite warmed up yet. However, whatever works for you is best as long as you get it in.
I don’t think that your central nervous system can be that “shot” through out a day, unless you have MS or something. I think you just get used to the time you workout at and your body warms up and hormones and shit start to release that make you feel more awake. Your CNS is fine
Also depends a lot on ur job and daily routine. I have a physically demanding job and kids, after a heavy morning workout i have less power left for my daily workload and even less for playing with the kids afterwards. If i work out after a long day i might have a tiny bit less strength for my workout but get a strong energy boost since i am spending some time to care of my health (fitness) in the evening
Here's a different take on about why morning workouts improved my gains in a significant way : there's simply less - and by that i mean MUCH less- people in the gym in the morning. After work, its always the rush hour to the gym. You literally would have to queue to use a bench press, or any other alternative....almost impossible to stick to a consistent training plan, even while trying to keep it flexible. As a result wouldn't train optimally or with the same motivation. In the morning, I have the whole sandbox mostly for myself and the early birds, so I can train however I want to consistently. Also I used to think evening workouts would allow me to blow off some steam for from the day = better workouts. Wrong. I was actually worn out from the day and wouldn't train as hard as when still fresh in the morning. All kindz o gainz since i switched from evening to morning. Just my 2 cents.
@priestboy329 don't overthink the importance of the whole 'pre-workout meal' trend would be my advise. People work out fasted with no issue. I just drink a glass of water + eat a banana at 7, im in the gym at 7h30 and have zero feeling of discomfort/ digestion. Would I have performed better with some caffeine? Maybe, who knows...but it doesn't matter. I lift better and harder than when I was going in the evening -and that was a few hours after a solid lunch . You'd think i'd be better fueled for it then, but the morning routine I described now works a lot better. I'm not saying it will for everybody but it sure does in my case.
second this. as a kind of anxious person, the morning crowd is very calm. many like myself are focused on training all we can before the day starts. evening is a different vibe & a lot more crowded. in my area high school friend groups going after school who are kind of treating it like a playground + don’t have great gym etiquette. definitely not the end of the world but can throw off the focus/rhythm
@@axeldrane You left out qn important detail, What do you do throughout the day? Are you a student? what major Are you a truck driver? An engineer? An tradesman? A programmer?
By far, the best time to exercise is the time when you’ll actually exercise. Whether it’s the morning or evening that works best for you, what matters is getting out there and sweating at some point.
Was a morning guy for like a year, got up at 5am and got it done. The good thing was I never missed a day during it, the bad I was tired af at first. Then I got lazy and liked my sleep to much so now I do it after work. Wish I could get back to morning, it was nice to just get it done and not dread it after a long day of work
I had the exact problem... too many stuff going on during the day, I prefer to get it done in the morning so I don't have to worry about it the whole day, but Im not as energetic as in the evening if I work out too early..
I can definitely see the appeal of morning workouts, but other than on the weekends it just isn’t for me. I prefer evening workouts because: 1.The gym I go to gets busy 2hrs before work and straight after work (I go after dinner when it’s quieter) 2.I don’t like fasted workouts, I perform better when I’m fuelled 3.I don’t get up early enough to be able to catch an early morning workout (better get more sleep) 4.I like working out to destress after work, and it helps me wind down for the night 5.I like how I don’t have to dress up for work etc when I work out in the evening. Just go home, shower and sleep. Also don’t have to carry soaps/makeup etc to the gym and then to the office so commuting is easier
The fact that only women seemed to show the differences makes me think it might be down to factors outside of the studies scope that couldn't be controlled. The female cycle jumps to mind, which is kind of hard to control in comparison to diet. But who knows, maybe it's something completely different.
I’ve always favored exercising in the afternoon or evening because I have more energy and motivation. If you’re a morning person, that might be different for you. I still believe the most important thing is that you’re going to the gym consistently and training hard.
I think it’s easy to figure out why evening workouts are better. Basically most people go through an entire day of meals before an evening workout, and also hydration, so that means your muscles are pretty much ready to do lots of strenuous work. I’ve found that workouts in the afternoon are also favorable. Morning workouts though, unless u have an amazing breakfast and wake up already feeling energetic (not me) often means u won’t be hitting the same weights you would in the evening. Might be good for losing fat, but not weightlifting I reckon.
Definitely agree. Morning workouts can be fine for certain goals, but evening workouts overall seem better for and sort of heavy weights, like powerlifting goals
Just chug water in the morning to hydrate, warm up a bit by walking in a circle for a few minutes and you're good to go. If you need to eat through the day to have strength you're weak. But maybe it's because I do bodyweight exercises like pushups.
So accurate, every single session I have close after wake up my strength is down and endurance feels horrible, no carbs loaded through out the day and I'm feeling miserable😂 evening everything feels fantastic
i always found that cardio went best in the morning and stength went best in the evening. pretty sure a lot of it was just how i feel mentally during dif times in the day tho
Personally, I normally do my exercise in the Evening (I normally start around 2-4 o’clock). I also tried exercising early morning (before I normally eat breakfast) and at late evening (round 7-8 pm), though these times were at home and more cardio based than in the gym. Based on experience, there was not really much of a difference. There are some slight difference, but not much noticeable. I normally work out around the time I mentioned first is because it is convenient for my schedule; and it is not really concrete, either. If I have to move my time in the gym earlier or later because of an event, I would do so. In the long run, it normally does not matter on when you do the workout, what matters is if you are actually pumping iron or not.
I'm one of those weird people who works out at like 10:30/11pm to midnight. I've tried working out in the morning and personally its worse for me in every way. Spent the last almost 15 years skateboarding so my body aches super bad in the morning and have absolutely no grip strength (no actual diagnosis but arthritis is super common in my family so a likely cause), so my performance is way worse in the morning and then I end up just feeling beat and fatigued the whole day which is a bummer. Normally I'm kind of physically beat working out at night since I'm active during the day but as long as I give myself like an hour to just relax before getting to it I don't notice any drop off compared to days I don't do anything physical during the day, if anything getting the blood flowing seems to make up for it. For me personally anyway I'd rather my workouts suffer because of my daily life than my daily life suffer because of my workouts.
If we're talking about science, late afternoon/evening would be the best time for extensive/strenuous workout. Why? Because due to nutrition intake+circadian circle goes together. That being said your energy level during late afternoon will be at its peak because the body naturally functions like this. You have already almost completed your daily calorific & protein needs. With strenuous workout you needed to add more intake but this will not burden your natural body functions because your body is an amazing self reliance in term of functioning. So it knows to grow at the right time.
i work in construction, after work im lazy and tired, more likely to miss my workout cuz i come home from work i want to eat, i eat and get moore lazy. So i prefer do my workout before work starting at 6am. But with this routine say goodbye to social life in workdays cuz you need to go sleep around 9/10pm. Thats my situation, hope it helps someone
working out in the morning will also help you mentally with your diet, after you workout in the morning, you wouldn't feel like eating any junk throughout the day since you'd be more aware of what its going to do to your gains
I think it's very important for people who compete to be able to train in the same time of the day they usually compete. I remember how I used to train in the evenings with my team and then we would play our match in the mornings. My body was very different in both situations. I was far more used to training in the evening so my body would need a lot of time warming up the days we would have a match.
I feel awful when working out in the morning, I used to do it anyway on Sundays because my gym closed early Sundays but now I''m at a 24/7 gym I can enjoy Sunday sessions!
I used to do morning workouts but would have to get up at 4 to get to the gym do a workout, get home get the kids ready and get to work on time. I found i had no energy in the morning which impacted my workouts and lifting. Swithed to night time workouts between 8-9pm once the kids are in bed and have heaps more energy and can lift more weight. Do whatever works for you and what makes you happy
Evening workouts mess with my sleep. When I was active in combat sports all the classes were after work and would let out around 9pm. I was wired for years.
Absolutely morning always. Once lunch times comes all my motivation for exercise goes out the window. But straight after breakfast and a good warm up I have the best workouts.
I prefer evening workouts cause it helps me sleep. I used to workout in the morning or afternoon but after resting I would have too much energy going into the evening and my body just doesn't wanna knock out.
Thank you for another interesting topic, i really appreciate how simple to understand you make your videos (with scientific) background. Leaving a comment for the algorithm gains.
I think it depends a lot in how intensity and volume you train. If you just do a feel good training for health, you can do it after waking up. But if you have a 2hour intense leg session in front of you, it would pobably be best for you to not do it right after you wake, since 1) your CNS isnt ready to handle i.e. heavy squats 2) you havent eaten enough yet and thus you dont have the energy for a long intense session and 3) your too stiff and injury rates yould climb up. Something like arms is probably doable tho without much drawback. Thats just my take on it.
Seems like the sample size is way to small to draw a conclusion. I think two groups working out at the same time in different gyms would show the same differences.
It's such a big difference for me, training in the evening results in about +10% performance, so it's a no brainer for me, also I like training hard, and that makes me sleep so easily and smooth afterwards.-
Always did hiit for 15 mins in the morning, it makes me feel alive throughout the day and even ends up helping my actual evening workout because I don't feel lethargic even if i didn't do much that day
I would hazard a guess and say this has absolutely nothing to do with the timing of the workouts, rather the related performance and nutritional discrepancies that naturally occur between the different times of the day.
Morning workouts are best to increase energy throughout the day; the con is that it requires additional warm-up time. Evening workouts are best for strength performance because your body has been warmed-up throughout the day; The only probably would be consistency.
"Evening workouts are best for strength performance because your body has been warmed-up throughout the day;" Also due to the fact that you have been filling your body with water and nutrients all day, and not while you were sleeping. You are quite literally fueled-up for the workout
I do my cardio in the morning as my time is limited, work starts early and my lifting sessions are long so it’s not realistic for me to wake up at 3:00am to get a session in
I prefer morning workouts before breakfast when the sun is out; it just feels good and then I can shower after and feel fresh the rest of the day. (Current heatwave notwithstanding!)
The hardest part about waking up early to workout, is I need to be up 3 hours earlier than usual. Time to get dressed, drive to them gym, workout and then come home to shower and eat and then go to work. The whole process takes me from 430am - 715 is when I leave for work.
Went back to workout at 5am after returning back to school. I swear that weight has never felt heavier. It makes me feel more alive than a few cup of coffee, and without the midday crash. Working out midday actually makes me feel more hesitant and sluggish. Perhaps it is because I think about having to do my workout more, building it up as more of a chore, where was working out early in the morning allows me to just do it without thinking about it and makes me feel so much more productive. Depends on the person.
I rly don’t feel like going to the gym up until nighttime. My mind seems to be more relaxed during the later times of the day and then I am more fit to go and workout. Especially during the summer, then it’s cooler.
Oh and also, I feel way more relaxed when I workout at the end of the day, it kinda completes and finishes my day. A nice feeling of accomplishment to finish the day with a workout.
These studies always seem to focus on time of day rather than part of day. What I mean is, for example, I work the night shift. If I work out in the morning, that's the end of my day. I'm going to work out, then go home and go to sleep. So would I see any benefit from working out in the morning, or would those benefits measured in morning workouts be seen in my late afternoon workouts?
I'm trying to understand how the study can gauge how well any of this works when they only did one type of training (i.e. weight training, cardio) once per week. You need to be doing either of those things 3 times a week minimum to see any reliable improvement.
Morning workouts. I have a physical job, by nighttime I’ve already blown my wad and I basically have lower energy levels. In the morning I’m fresh and definitely have better performance. Plus workouts hype me up, I can’t sleep for a few hours afterwards and even when I do it’s not great. So when I worked out at night my sleep was worse. Now I’m tired by 8pm and sleep like a baby. Also, I have a toddler. Waking up super early is the only way I have the time.
Id say go for the time that helps your productivity, if i workout in the morning then im spent for the rest of the day, some people i know use a morning workout to kickstart their day of productivity. Whichever one is best for you.
Mine would be 3pm because I go to work at 4am until 12nn. I love exercise specially cardio + weight lifting, now I'm not a body builder by any means but after exercising consistently for 2 years, I can safely say that I am proud to have a body that I'm not ashamed of at the beach 😅
I work out in the morning bc it’s better for my schedule and also the gym at my college is very free in the morning but packed to the rim in the evenings so it’s impossible to get a good workout in
See I think this is all up to the person, as long as you have it in your head that you wanna work out and be a better person no matter what time is an issue, we went through hell in the military and we turned into fighting machines no matter what time we worked out
The hard science on this is still difficult. Technically we do know the body will adapt, so if your body gets used to resistance training in the AM vs the PM your Neurological System will get better suited for those times, so in the end it's really what's best for your schedule and what feels good for you. That said.. what skews this and makes us uncertain is most people do train in the PM and most of those people have significantly more muscle mass than those who train in the AM.
I work out at 4am before I go to work because I skipped the gym too much after work but honestly even with a good warmup my heavier lifts like squat and deadlift definitely suffer compared to if I do the same lifts in the evenings
Personally it depends on what I'm training. For strength work, either its 1 hour after breakfast (still fresh), or 8-9pm (not sure why). If i try to do any cardio in morning, I will be dead for hours after. However in between, 3-5pm I found that I felt best doing cardio type workouts, like weight circuits, supersets, higher reps since I would have had more carbs stored. If I do this, I have a burst of energy for hours. I'm too sluggish to do any compound lifts during 3-5pm so I dont bother lifting heavy.
I workout in the morning and evening the morning you feel more energized more awake throughout the day. Then evenings I workout I have lots of energy but I workout sections throughout the day.
Sounds like the study is affected by The Multiple Comparison Problem. Basically, if you compare two extremely similar groups on 100 different criteria, you can expect to observe about 5 significant differences at random - because that's how "Significance" is normally defined,
Am starting work out in the evening and realized my belly n muscle build up much faster during than in the morning..morning good also but to me a bit slower😂😂
