When is the best time to exercise?

Posted on 5 August 2014

Ultimately, some exercise is better than no exercise – so if you have a choice between morning, noon, night or never, you’re better off picking one of the first three options. But which one of those is the best?

Research suggests that morning is the best time to train – at least if you want to lower your blood pressure and get a good night’s sleep (and hey, who doesn’t?). A 2011 study by Appalachian State University tracked the blood pressure levels and sleep patterns of people aged 40 to 60, who exercised moderately for 30 minutes, three times a week. The research volunteers walked on a treadmill in the morning (07h00), at midday (13h00) and in the evening (19h00) – and in all cases, those who exercised at 07h00 experienced about a 10% reduction in blood pressure that carried through the rest of the day. They also had about a 25% dip in blood pressure at night, slept longer and had more beneficial sleep cycles than when they exercised at other times of the day.

Another fan of early-morning exercise is Dr Herman Kotzé, a sports physician who works at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport. ‘If you do high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in the morning, you’ll speed up your metabolism – and your metabolism will then stay high for the rest of the day until you go to sleep again. The problem with training in the evening is that if your metabolism is low during the day, you’ll only have a short period in which to spike it and burn fat before you go to sleep again.’

‘In HIIT, you use quick, short bursts of high-intensity exercise to raise your heart rate, then drop it slightly, then raise it, then drop it again,’ Dr Kotzé explains. ‘It’s like a car burning petrol: you the revs up to 7 000, down to 3 000, up to 7 000, down to 3 000… and the higher the revs, the faster it burns petrol. Your metabolism works the same way: the higher your metabolism is, the quicker you’ll burn the fat.’

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The information provided in this article was correct at the time of publishing. At Mediclinic we endeavour to provide our patients and readers with accurate and reliable information, which is why we continually review and update our content. However, due to the dynamic nature of clinical information and medicine, some information may from time to time become outdated prior to revision.