The best time to exercise affects your performance when you train, this is due to your health, body clock, when you eat and your schedule. I will look at all of these factors to help you understand which option is best for you.
The General Benefits of Exercise
There are many benefits of exercising and they can play an important part on when you should exercise. You need more motivation to exercise, here’s why you should start now. It can help you work towards your life and fitness goals.
1. It helps control your weight and physique
To lose fat, you must burn more calories than you consume. Exercise is one of the best ways to burn more calories, other than just eating less of them. Try exercising at least 2-3 times a week to start, with workouts that increases your heart rate to at 60% of your maximum heart rate.
Your body requires resistance training, with progressive overloading and consuming more calories than you burn to maximise muscle gain. You can start with the same 2-3 times a week routine, training at 70% of your 1 rep max of with 3-5 sets of 6-12 reps and rest between 1-2 minutes.
2. It improves your mood
It is a well-known fact that exercise improves your mood. This is due to the release of endorphins, which are “feel-good” chemicals that reduce your perception of pain in brain. On days that you feel down like you don’t even feel like exercising, those are the days that you should push yourself to go to feel better.
3. Exercise can boost your self-esteem and confidence
Other than the endorphins that make you feel good, you can improve you self-esteem and confidence through reaching performance goals. The positive changes in your body will also lead to a more positive body image and confidence.
How Your Body Clock Affects The Best Time to Exercise
Your body clock is what determines whether you have energy in the morning or evening. It is recommended that you exercise when your energy levels are at their best, so that you can get the most out of your body when you do and your utmost strength and efforts can be applied.
Are you an early bird or a night owl?
How When You Eat Affects the Best Time to Exercise
Your nutrition ensures that you work towards you fitness goals, be it fat loss or muscle gain. It is important that you don’t eat too much or too early (at least 30 minutes) before you exercise because it can lead to an uncomfortable workout or even an unsettled stomach.
Otherwise, if you do decide to eat before a workout, make sure that it is a suitable pre-workout snack that is filling enough for the workout and provides an effective energy source.
How Your Schedule Affects the Best Time to Exercise
Your schedule is important because if you have class or work at either time of the day, you wouldn’t want to be strained on time to workout or be late for your duties. What makes a good workout is the one that you finish, so make sure you schedule it to be able to do that.
If you need drive to exercise after work, check out these 5 Tips to Help You Exercise After Work
How to Set Up Your Best Time to Exercise
- Understand that you must have at least 24 hours of rest per muscle group.
- Analyse the time you have per day during the week to sleep and work/study.
- Set up a workout split that works with what you’ve analysed and the time you have left to exercise.
For example: You have a 24-hour day, you sleep for 8 hours and work 8 hours Monday to Friday. You enjoy your sleep and wake up when you have to for work. This means that you won’t have time to workout in the morning, so you decide to workout in the evening. You want to enjoy your weekends, therefore you decide to set aside 1-2 hours, 4 days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) to exercise. You will still have 5-7 hours to work on other things like studying or your business.
The Benefits of Exercising in the Morning
- You can boost fat loss if you eat on an empty stomach and/or practice intermittent fasting, this is especially if you do a low intensity exercise is where you’ll burn more fat.
- It boosts your energy to take on the day and it’s a great feeling to get it over and done with first thing in the morning
The Benefits of Exercising in the Afternoon/Evening
- Your energy (glycogen) stores are usually fuller since you’ve been eating throughout the day. This can lead to more energy and better performance in training.
- Exercise can help you sleep faster and go deeper into sleep. This ensures that you get the right amount of sleep you need before you wake up for school or work. Take a warm shower or bath and feel your body relax.
The Best Time to Exercise
The best time to exercise is the one that you consistently follow to achieve your fitness goals. Your health conditions, body clock/energy levels and schedule are key points in ensuring this, so make sure that you understand them first and implement what you need to.
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