Having a healthy life is simple if two very clear premises are met: a balanced diet and doing some exercise. Both factors feed into each other since to perform in training you need to eat well and, in addition, if you want to stay in shape, the diet must be accompanied by physical exercise. By combining the two parts, you will be closer to your goal. However, day-to-day obligations sometimes prevent you from doing sports when you want to. It may be your case, or you simply don’t know what time is best to train to perform better and achieve good results.
To find out what is the best time to exercise, when you can lose more weight by doing sports or at what time of the day you can develop your muscles the most when exercising them, do not miss this article in which we talk about all these doubts.
Index1. What is the best time to exercise |
What is the best time to exercise
To discover what is better, whether to exercise in the morning or at night , you have to assume the absence of a single and indisputable answer. There are arguments for and against for both parts of the day:
Morning exercise
Starting from the point of view of metabolism, the advantages of doing sports in the morning are important. Training in hours away from meals helps control weight, so in this sense it is convenient to exercise first thing in the day.
Also, sport in the morning helps many people establish routines and maintain consistency. With this, you will avoid that, in case of unforeseen events or commitments throughout the day, you put aside the training because you will have already done it first thing in the morning.
However, the main factor against exercising in the morning is the body’s low body temperature, with the consequent increased risk of injury and lower sports efficiency, so if you do it you have to warm up very well before and know your own limits well.
Exercise at night
The great cons of morning sport becomes a plus point if you want to exercise at night. In the afternoon or early evening, body temperature rises and the body reaches its best time to perform at its best in training. Therefore, the risk of injury is much lower.
However, exercising before bed at high intensity can also have its drawbacks. The main one is the risk of affecting sleep, altering the hours of rest and causing greater exhaustion the next day. So you will have to adjust the intensity to your capacity without great overexertion if you want to ensure that your sleep is not affected. Also, keep in mind that it is considered that the best time to do sports without affecting your sleep or to even help you fall asleep, is around 4 to 5 hours before going to sleep.
Exercise before or after eating?
If your question is when it is better to exercise, if before or after eating, there is no specific and unique solution. There are several studies that contradict each other:
Therefore, do it whenever you can since the most important thing is to play sports, but always depending on the intensity: if it is very high, a professional athlete could be trained, but for the rest of the population it is dangerous. If you decide to exercise after eating, try not to fill your stomach completely and if you decide to do it the opposite, before eating, keep in mind that it is necessary that you have at least eaten a snack and / or that the intensity of the exercise is low. This way you will avoid dizziness and other possible problems.
What is the best time to do sports and lose weight
If your goal is to lose weight by training, surely, you want to know what is the best time to exercise and burn fat. A study recently published in the International Journal of Obesity has determined that exercising in the morning, before 3:00 pm, helps you lose weight more than in the afternoon. In addition, it helps to increase activity during the day and to eat fewer calories.
Fasting before training can also help you lose weight, but the premise that you should always keep in mind is the importance of the caloric deficit. If the count of calories consumed throughout the day is less than the number of calories expended, you will be able to lose weight, otherwise, you will not achieve it regardless of the time you train.
Now we advise you to complete this information knowing How to lose weight with exercise by clicking on this other article.
The best time to exercise to increase muscle mass
Throughout the article you have seen that knowing what is the best time to exercise depends largely on the type of sport you want to do and the goal you have. Training in the morning and at night has its pros and cons, but the most important thing is to exercise daily, or several days a week, whenever you can to, along with a balanced diet, have a healthy life. In addition, it is also convenient to ensure that it is always more or less at the same time and have a routine.
Still, if you want to find out when it is best to exercise to promote muscle growth , take note of these details.
- The schedule considered ideal by many is in the morning . This is due to the increase in cortisol and testosterone levels throughout the night, contributing to the increase in muscle mass with morning training, which takes advantage of the increase in these hormones, which peak shortly after we wake up. To get the most out of the hormonal increase, warm up the muscles well and gradually increase the training load, since at the beginning the flexibility will be less.
- Training in the afternoon also has its advantages, whether the goal is to lose weight, increase muscle mass or simply maintain a good physical condition, because between 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. , the body has been active enough time to have good levels of physical preparation and later you begin to relax by preparing for sleep. During these hours of the afternoon, it is considered that there is better blood flow, that the respiratory capacity is also wider, so there is better oxygenation, and that the muscles have a better temperature so the process of breathing will be easier. warming up and more difficult to get injured.
Now that you know a little more about what is the best time of the day to exercise depending on your goal and your availability situation, you may be interested in knowing better the issue of how many times a week it is convenient to do sports.
If you want to read more articles similar to What is the best time to exercise, we recommend that you enter our Fitness category.