Are day workouts better than evening workouts? We all have been there – wondering and engaging in perpetual debates about what ‘the best time to workout’ is.
Physical activity, regardless of the time of the day is beneficial for our overall well-being. However, the time of the workout does have an impact on our fitness goals and health markers, suggests a study.
The study, ‘Timing of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity, Mortality, Cardiovascular Disease, and Microvascular Disease in Adults With Obesity,’ led by researchers from the University’s Charles Perkins Centre, and published in the journal Diabetes Care in April 2024, points out certain key aspects about the timing of your workout.
The researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia studied 30,000 people over almost 8 years, and tracked the data of their physical activity in the morning, afternoon, or evening using a wearable device. The participants were adults aged over 40 years of age living with obesity. Among them, 2,995 participants were also diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers found that the people who exercised between 6 p.m. and midnight, particularly with moderate to vigorous aerobic activities that raised their heart rate and induced breathlessness, had the lowest risk of premature death and death from cardiovascular disease.
“Exercise is by no means the only solution to the obesity crisis, but this research does suggest that people who can plan their activity into certain times of the day may best offset some of these health risks,” Dr Angelo Sabag, Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University of Sydney said in a statement.
“HIIE can be performed in the early evening without subsequent sleep disruptions and may favourably alter appetite-related hormone concentrations. Nonetheless, perceived appetite and energy intake do not change with acute HIIE regardless of time of day,” a study published in 2019 suggests.
So what time you should workout really depends on your fitness goals.
