Study Suggests Exercising In The Morning vs. Evening May Affect Your Fitness Results

Fitting exercise into a hectic schedule usually means finding any free moment to get your workout done, no matter the hour.

In order to determine the benefit of fitting training into certain times of the day, one small study took 27 active women and 20 men and measured their fitness progress over the course of 12 weeks. 

Participants began at the same baseline fitness level, and the study monitored various measures of strength progress, abdominal fat loss, and other health markers.

In this study of active people, female participants who completed their strength training in the morning (6 to 8 a.m.) displayed not only improvements in lower-body power in exercises such as jump squats but also a significant reduction in total and abdominal fat.

As for evening workouts (6:30 to 8:30 p.m.), female participants in this group were found to have better success in increasing upper-body strength, power, and endurance.

In terms of body composition, women who exercised in the evening still experienced a reduction in total body fat but less significantly than their morning workout counterparts.

Instead, they were found to have better success with overall muscle growth, which can be useful to take into consideration when looking at fitness goals. "Exercise in the evening may provide improvements in upper body muscular performance, and possibly mood enhancement," the study authors note. 

It should come as no surprise that women and men react differently to exercise, but this study reveals exactly how much gender and the time at which you work out can play into body composition, strength gains, and overall fitness improvements.

Separate from even your diet and the workouts you're doing, catering your exercise time to specific goals can allow you to create a more targeted approach to fitness (and even boost your mood, in the case of evening workouts!)